A New Kingdom Rises
by Sifl-senpai
Summary: Zelda had prayed for this moment; had all but given up her life for it: the beast was slain and peace could return once more. And after one hundred years, Link and Zelda would finally, finally meet again. It's perfect, honestly, except for one tiny setback: Link can't remember his own name, let alone anything about her!
1. A New Kingdom

The grass shuffled in the breeze like a river of gold in the fading light. The ruins, too, shimmered like a gilded city blessed by the Goddess and showered with her holy light rather than a mess of stones coated with pitch and the scorching aftermath of an army that had consumed itself.

Zelda stood there, finally, after so many years and yet what felt like hours at the same time, smiling at the boy in bright blue standing in the center of the field, watching her watch him. She knew him. For a hundred years and one, she had known him. He was quiet, stalwart, loyal, strong, and courageous, and everything she wished for herself. The light danced off his long hair as it fell from the tie holding it back and blew in the wind, like he was made from threads of gold and silver and breathed to life for the love of Hyrule, and of the Goddess who lived inside of her.

"Thank you," Zelda said. It was not enough. It would never be enough. More gratitude filled her heart as she strode forward and held out her hand, and so she said more and more, so eager to tell him about her hopes, and to learn about his adventures. They would travel side by side, properly, this time.

Link smiled blithely at her sentiments, and Zelda realized- she had been stupid not to- that while she had been watching him from places unseen, she didn't know his thoughts. "Do you," Zelda said, creeping forward one step at a time through the golden fields of her home- finally, home! She was here; she was home- "remember me?" A smile played at her face. Link had always been so shy, so gentle. Even if he had forgotten her, forgotten why she was there, he had surely remembered his love of this land and the people in it, and rushed to Hyrule's aid by a voice in his heart. They were bound by destiny, the two of them, and for the first time Zelda could truly see how lucky she was, that this boy would walk with her into the darkest of depths and follow her into the mouth of the devil if only to save-

"Huh? Did you say something?" Link stepped forward, grinned, and stuck out his right hand. "Sorry! I wasn't listening. It's nice to meet you, sweetheart!" He chuckled and plopped his hands on his waist when Zelda was too dumbfounded to offer hers to shake. "So! That black pig-thing was crazy, huh? What even was he? Cannon, did you say? Mannon…?" He looked off into the distance and scratched at his head like he could pull the answer from his uncovered head. "Dannon? Oh, well! Guess it doesn't matter now! Would've really sucked without that bow, though. Which," he plucked the bow of light off his back and held it out to Zelda, "thanks for letting me borrow this! Shoots like a dream. I didn't know I could shoot a bow at all, actually! Think it was actually shooting for me?"

Zelda took the bow, her hands suddenly numb. "You," she started, "you didn't know about Ganon? You don't," she swallowed, "remember anything?"

He smiled. "Nope. It's kinda frightening, but also kind of cool." He winked at Zelda. "People've been throwing the name Link around me like you wouldn't believe, though, and honestly I'm kind of glad I don't have to deal with his responsibilities," he said. "I mean, I think my name was maybe Link, but frankly I don't remember enough about the poor bastard to know what sort of troublesome stuff everyone wanted of him, and it wasn't like I could just ask. What if I was never actually Link? What if I was just another amnesiatic boy lost in the Wild?" He giggled, and then the smile dropped from his face in an abrupt change of mood. "What if that's what's in the other shrines?! Amnesiac guys and gals?!" He covered his mouth and paced from side to side in the tall grass until he had a significant path trampled beneath his feet. "Should I go wake them up? But then what th' heck am I gonna do with an army of people who don't know anything about anything?"

Zelda watched him with huge eyes. "You really don't remember anything?"

Link's blue eyes found her again. "Huh? Wha? Oh, no. Nope! Don't remember a thing. Should I?" He got back to pacing, chin in hand. "Now, would it matter if they knew anything? I could potentially have an entire army at my disposal! I could tell them anything! I could tell them I was their commander! We could take this place!" He spun around and grabbed Zelda's shoulders. "Hey! Since I just killed that big weird sludge thing and nobody's in that castle, do you wanna take this place over with me?"

Zelda's eyes bugged out. She wanted to cry. "What?"

"Yeah! I mean, I don't want to do anything bad with it- it's kind of in shambles, anyway- but like, wouldn't it be cool to have our own kingdom? Just in name?! It would be like having a really, really high maintenance dog!" He shook her, gently. "We could tell people we're royalty!"

"But I am royalty," Zelda said weakly.

Link grinned wider and slapped her on the back. "That's the spirit! Now you're gettin' it!" He held two fingers up to his mouth and whistled. A whinny sounded in the distance. "Let's take this place! I hereby rename this kingdom," he spread his arms out wide, "Er, what's your name, again? Zelda? Yeah!" He giggled. "Link-and-Zeldaland!"

Zelda fainted in the arms of Hyrule's newest tyrant, and asked herself where exactly she had gone wrong.


	2. Ganon

"Ganon," said Link, his crystal blue eyes scanning the horizon from atop the elegant stag steed he had snuck upon and tamed not an hour before. He would look every bit a forest prince, if only for the absolutely wretched monologue coming out of his mouth. "Ganon! Hm." He said the name like it was just a word, and not a legacy laced in malice and built on the corpses of the Hylian races untold. "That was what that thing was, right? I like that. Ganon. It's a great word. Has a nice ring to it. Sounds like a name!" He turned around and looked at Zelda, smiling through his heresy. "What would you say to calling me Ganon? The thing it's named for is gone forever now, so. You know." He gestured from the direction they had come from to himself. "Battle spoils. It gets to be dead, I get a better name."

Zelda twisted the reigns of her mount, Stew, and pressed her nails into the leather. "Your name is Link," she said, emphatically.

"So says you," Link said, tossing his hair. "But does it have to be? It's really lame. Ganon has such a," he held his hands out in front of himself as if summoning the word up to his level, "grandiose air to it. Link just sounds like," he slouched in the saddle, pinched his nose, and used his most pathetic, nasally voice, "Link."

"Link is a fine name," Zelda said.

The boy himself snorted, and held his nose again in the spirit of a farce. "Weeh. Link. Link. I'm Link, you guys. I'll stand up for you with my noodle arms," he whined. He tired of his play and threw his arms up into the air. They fell on his thighs with a loud slap, and his mount gave him an annoyed leer. "That's awful! Whoever named me must've hated me. That's the only explanation.

"That's surely not true. Your father was just strict, that's-"

"But Ganon," Link continued, deepening his voice and puffing out his chest for that one evil word. "Some old-ass man walks up to me and says," he bent his back again and put a cracking warble into his voice, "Ohhh, sonny, you look the spitting image of a boy who stole the love of my life's heart back when I was an infinitely more strapping young buck than he ever was! Ohoho! I hate that scrawny, effeminate sonovabitch! He had the stupidest name, too- say, sonny, you wouldn't happen to be Link, would you?" He grinned and reached across their mounts to nudge Zelda, "And then I'll say," he cleared his throat and put on his most masculine bravado, "No, sir, I'm Ganon." Link chuckled. "That'll change his tune real quick. He'll probably start sweating or pee himself or something, if he can't outright run away."

Zelda's hands shook harder and harder with each word he said, and something hot and roiling churned in her stomach and turned sweet freedom of her last hundred years of isolation and emotional exhaustion to ash in her own mouth. "But your name is Link!" She cried, tears in her eyes. "First Knight of Hyrule! You're a hero, in title and act! This is serious!"

Link raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, I know. I am serious."

Zelda pushed her mount in front of Link's deer and made it rear up in alarm. Unfortunately, he did not throw Link to the ground. "You would just throw that away and take on an evil name?! You would spit in the face of everything you went through- everything I went through- just for that?! For a practical joke?!"

"What," said Link, "Do you want it? I didn't think Zelda was so bad a name, but if you don't like it, who am I to say who you are or who you aren't? You can be Ganon if you really-"

"That isn't the point!" Zelda screamed at him. Stew's ears flattened. "Nobody is Ganon! Ganon is dead! Long dead! He's gone, and he shouldn't haunt the people of Hyrule any longer!"

"Neither should Link or Zelda," the boy said, soothing his deer and pulling an apple from his pouch. "And yet, here we are."

"That's not the same," Zelda insisted. "Calamity Ganon was an evil- a calamitous evil-"

"Calamity Ganon was a calamity?" Link interjected. "Never would have guessed."

Zelda lost all composure and slapped him across the cheek. "I am Zelda, princess of Hyrule, and you will not disrespect me like this!"

Mild annoyance writ all across Link's features as he touched his cheek and worked his jaw, and then it grew when he finally bothered to look back at Zelda. "Hyrule, you say? Hyrule?" He shrugged. "And where exactly is this kingdom?"

"Here!" Zelda screamed, her arms spread wide to encompass both the tall waves of grass at their feet, the dark forests to the north and the looming, blue mountains in the distance. "This is Hyrule!"

Link shook his head. "No, sweetheart. This could be Link and Zeldaland in a few years if you had taken me up on my first offer, but honestly, this was Ganonland until literally a few hours ago, and from where I'm sitting, it still is."

Zelda slapped him again.

"Ow!" he whined. "You could have at least hit my other cheek and spread it around a little instead of going for the same place!"

"You could have the decency to shut your smart mouth!"

"You could have the brains to listen to what I'm saying, then!" Link shot back. "You've been gone for a hundred years! Your kingdom's done its own thing, and you don't have a military or any kind of force to speak of! You might have a few old fogies who are still loyal to you, but the younger generation has moved on!" Link gestured to himself. "I have moved on! I don't know you from any other blonde girl around here!"

Zelda felt her shoulders start to tremble under the emotional weight she had carried for so long. "That's why you have to remember!"

The two of them stared at one another, hard and unblinking. Zelda fought back the fresh tears threatening to spill down her cheeks and tried to discern what exactly Link was thinking behind his bright blue eyes.

Then, suddenly, he smiled. "Are you hungry? Because I'm hungry."

"What?"

"One hundred years is a long time to have not eaten anything," Link said. He reached out and pinched her cheeks. "When we get to the stable, I'll make us something good. Mushroom, frog, and monster horn omelettes. Mmm! You'll love it." He spun Stew around with a pat to his flank, and they trudged onwards. "Then, we'll look at us a map, find you a place to go, find me a place to go, and part ways as unlikely acquaintances."

"Link!" Zelda hissed. "You don't get to tell me what to do!"

"Ah! Ah, ah, ah!" He held a finger towards her lips. "Ganon. My name is Ganon, and you don't get to tell me who I am and what I'm not to do." Ganon grinned. "If it really bothers you that much, you can be Link."


	3. The First Shrine

The rain fell in fat, merciless droplets onto Zelda's skin and on the surface of the Hylian River in a silver-white mist, just as it had the last time Zelda cried her eyes out in farewell to her hero. Where Link should have been on an even-tempered, noble horse, Ganon now stood arguing with the stable hand over the irritable stag pawing the sand at his side.

"I can't keep that here," he said. "That's a wild animal!"

"Every horse you see in here was a wild animal at one point!" Ganon retorted. "You're a wild animal!"

Zelda had no home. Her father was dead. Almost everyone she knew was dead. She saw the utter desolation of every settlement in Hyrule Field firsthand today, and she could only imagine what other skeletons of past horrors awaited her the farther she went. That, and she was cold and still covered in the dirt and dried mud of the last day she had breathed fresh air free from the Calamity's clutches, and her old, ruined dress- the only clothing she owned- left her with no protection from any of the elements. Yes, she had many reasons to be ungrateful.

She had imagined everything to be clearer, with the Calamity gone, not more complicated and hazy than ever. She had been so sure that, when Ganon had come running almost immediately after hearing her call out to him on the tower, that he had known who she was and what they were to do.

"You're the wild animal, bud!" the stable hand spat at Ganon.

"Oh, you bet," said Ganon, winking at another traveler who had stopped to watch.

Zelda turned away from the scene and took cover beneath the covered canopy of the stable. Ganon had been kind enough to offer to pay for her night's stay in a bed, and though the open stares of the visitors of the community style layout were possibly the last thing she needed, it was better than anything else she could think of. She ignored the perplexed look of the hunched-over merchant with the bowl cut and crawled under the sheets of the bed farthest from anyone else, and cried herself to sleep.

She awoke to the whinnying of horses and the chirping of birds, and for a moment thought she was home until she sat up to find Ganon's blue shirt and a pair of pants draped on top of her blankets, and then Ganon himself standing right outside the stable in nothing but his underwear, showing off to some woman in a traveler's cloak about the sword in his hands. Had he left his clothes for her?

Zelda looked away and tried to retreat back under the covers, but she was spotted.

"Hey! You're awake!" He waved stupidly, and then scurried over to her. "That chick over there is willing to pay me for all the stuff I found in the castle! She has no idea that she can just go in and take it now!" He snickered. "I went back early this morning and took a bunch of stuff just to sell to people! As long as those big freaky spider-things're still sitting around looking scary, nobody knows it's really just easy pickings! It's just a few monsters still in there!"

Zelda snatched up the clothes from the bed and skulked off to bathe in the river. It didn't matter why they were there; they were hers now. She didn't care if Ganon was naked for the rest of his life.

As she rounded the corner, she found Stew and Ganon's stag both absolutely loaded with baggage- the hilts of several weapons protruded from sacks on their sides, and wooden chests loaded with linens, books, armor, and other odds and ends to the point that they were bursting. Stew stuck his head out to mouth at Zelda's shoulder in greeting. She pushed him away and broke out into a run across the beach until she tripped on her white skirts and toppled into the sand. The shirt and pants in her arms went flying.

"Hey!" Ganon's voice followed her. "Don't push Stew! He's put in a hard day's work already to pay for your stay in that bed, sleeping beauty!" The morning sun put a halo on the back of his head and cast a deep shadow over his front as he held out his hand to help Zelda up. She averted her eyes and turned her body away from him.

"Go away!" Zelda shouted. Then, she saw it- a mass of black rock with bright orange veins running through it.

A shrine. They were active, now. Every single one! The gateway to everything Ganon was meant to be was open!

"Come here!" Zelda said, scrambling to her feet.

"But you just told me to go away!" Ganon complained.

Zelda grabbed at the Sheikah Slate on his belt. "Nevermind that! Just give me that!"

"Woah!" Ganon covered his crotch as she pulled away with the Sheikah Slate. "You don't have to be so forward with the merchandise, okay?!"

Zelda ignored him and trotted towards the shrine. She put the Slate on the raised pedestal by the entrance and all but shrieked in delight when the lights changed and the bars of obsidian-black stone peeled away from the entrance.

"Oh!" said Ganon. "Woah! I thought that was some kind of weird stove, or maybe a kiln or something." He grinned and laughed mindlessly. "How dumb am I, huh?" He clapped his hands together. "Well, we've figured that one out! Let's move on, huh? You were going to take a bath?"

Zelda grabbed his arm and dragged him to the single circle carved into the floor of the shallow cave. "Even if you don't believe me, you have to remember!" She looked into his bewildered blue eyes. "These shrines were meant for you to find! You're the hero, Link! I'll prove it to you!"

Ganon opened his mouth, but then utterly lost whatever retort he had when the floor started to glow and sucked both him and Zelda into the earth.

When the glow faded, they found themselves in a chamber with gargantuan ceilings. Constellations of orange and gold light ran in methodical designs across the smooth, glassy black stone making up the walls of the cavernous chamber alongside subtle, meticulous, and shallow bas reliefs that Zelda almost missed. Three platforms were built into the walls, and alongside the one on the right were three strange boxes stacked neatly on top of one another to equal nearly the height of the platform. The only other thing in the room was a series of white bars on the top of the left platform barring some glowing object that Zelda could not quite see the details of.

"I should go back to the horses," Ganon said.

Zelda ignored him. "It's huge," she said. "I'd never been in one of these before!" She covered her mouth and stepped into the center of the room. "This is… this is amazing! Are the others all the same?! What was this used for, exactly?! What does it ask of you, oh Hero chosen by the sword?"

Suddenly, Ganon grabbed Zelda's arm and shrieked. "Can everyone but me just do that?!" Ganon exclaimed.

"That hurts!" Zelda jerked her arm away. "And do what, exactly?"

"Did you not hear that?"

"Hear what?' She looked around. "Did the ground shift?"

"No," he said, creeping forwards and looking to the glowing object above them. It was like a blue curtain of light flowing over a glass box obscuring whatever was sitting inside. "Actually, yes. Yes, it was just the earth, and we should leave in case something collapses."

"You're lying," said Zelda.

"No I'm not," said Ganon.

Zelda crossed her arms. "Tell me."

"No. I want to leave. My steed needs me."

She tapped her foot.

"...Fine!" Ganon threw his hands in the air. "It's a voice. Actually, it sounds more like a low, monotone song emanating from a creature with two voices than anything. There! Can we go now?"

"A.. a voice?" Zelda held her hands up to her ears. "Can… can you ask it to speak again? Maybe a little louder?"

"It is," Ganon said, narrowing his eyes at the glowing box.

Zelda felt her face heat up. She was descended from the goddess herself, and had locked an evil spirit away with that power for over one hundred years! How could she be deaf to something that Ganon was not? How? Had her powers forgotten about her the same way her hero had?

"Runes? I don't have any runes," Ganon suddenly said, to nobody in particular. "I'm sorry we've bothered you. We'll be leaving, thanks." He put his hand on the small of Zelda's back and whirled her around back the way they came. A bright blue light spilled from the ring where they had landed on entry, and Zelda could see a long, transparent tube reaching down from above it.

"W-wait!" Zelda said. "Before we go, let's at least have a look around! You haven't even tried to explore! We could learn so much!"

"No," said Ganon. "There's nothing down here that I want to find out about."

Zelda jerked away from him again. "If you think I'm leaving just because that is what you-!"

Suddenly, the room shook and both Ganon and Zelda fell to the floor as the walls began to move and change around them, like it was some sort of puzzle. Zelda covered her head and clenched her eyes shut until the quaking ceased, and when it did, she opened her eyes and found the glowing cube sitting in front of her.

It was a throne or a palanquin of some kind- an ornate roof sat above it, and two stairs led to a small railed platform large enough for a single person to stand before it. Zelda looked upon it in wonder, and took a cautious step forward. The blue light eased up and revealed a shrivelled, darkened human corpse posed with its legs crossed beneath its broad, red and white hat. A faint Eye of Truth floated in the remaining light surrounding it.

Zelda approached the platform, her hand extended out in wonder.

"Don't!" shouted Ganon.

He was too late. Zelda pressed her finger against the pupil of the Eye, and the light glowed brighter before peeling away completely in long, thin strips, leaving the corpse utterly bare. She gasped and pulled her hand away, and then leaned in closer to study its withered, wrinkled features.

"She can't hear you," Ganon said.

Zelda turned to him, but then realized that his words were not directed at her. She looked back to the Sheikah corpse, and then gaped in awe when she saw its cracked lips open.

"You," it asked, "are the descendant of the goddess?" Its voice was dry and weak.

"Yes," she said.

"The Calamity is," Zelda heard it wheeze for air, "gone?"

"Yes," she said. "But who are you? What is this place?"

It spoke no more, and Zelda realized that it was probably using its power to speak with Ganon.

"No," said Ganon. "No, I never went into any of the other shrines. I never needed to- I didn't even know what they were!" He paused. "I'm sorry. It just seemed pointless."

Then, to Zelda's great surprise, the corpse opened its eyes. They were shrivelled and black, just like the rest of its body.

"I'm sorry," said Ganon.

The corpse only began to rattle.

"What's it saying?!" Zelda demanded.

Ganon shook his head, suddenly more somber than suspicious.

"We can learn so much from you!" Zelda said, reaching out to the corpse. "Hyrule is safe now, but there is so much we don't know! So much we have left to uncover! We could bring the Sheikah back all of their glory, along with that of Hyrule! Won't you help us?"

The corpse's skin peeled away into ash beneath its huge, black eyes, and then its bones disintegrated into gleaming dust like tears before the rest of it shattered apart into nothingness.

Zelda beheld the space where it had been sitting, both her hands outstretched to empty air. She looked to Ganon. He held his hands in front of him like there was something sitting within them, and then pressed his palm to his chest without a word.

"Let's go, now," he said.

"What happened?!" pressed Zelda. "What is this? What do these shrines do?"

"We're leaving," commanded Ganon.

"What did the Sheikah tell you?!"

"Nothing an idiot couldn't already figure out! Now, let's go!"

"Idiot?! Are you saying I'm an idiot?" Zelda shook her head, aghast. Her head knight had never talked back to her, ever, let alone called her stupid. "Since you're so smart and I'm so stupid, I guess I can't let you leave until it's explained to me!"

"Zelda!" Ganon bellowed, his face stormy.

She held up the Sheikah Slate. "I'm not so sure you can get out without this! Do you know?"

"Zelda!" Ganon repeated, visibly bristling. His face and bare chest both began to redden with his temper.

"What did the Sheikah tell you?!" Zelda repeated.

Ganon set his jaw and shook his head.

"Oh, do you not know?! Were you too stupid to listen when someone told you to do something the first time? Can you not remember plain instructions when they're laid out right in front of your face? Or do you just not like what people-"

"They're tombs, Zelda!" Ganon shouted, grabbing her arm and ripping the Sheikah slate away from her. "These shrines are nothing but tombs. Every single one of them." He glanced down at the Slate and then skulked to the ring of blue light. "I don't want to stay in here any longer than I have to."

"B-but surely," Zelda stuttered. "Surely we could find scriptures or maybe a settlement, or, or the lights in the walls! We can study-!"

Ganon shot her a look that could give his namesake a run for his money in inflicting terror. "There's nothing else in here. Let's go."

Zelda followed him to the surface without a word, and then lingered behind in the shallow cave entrance as Ganon stormed off to the stable. The clothes he had left for her were still sprawled on the beach where she had dropped them. She gathered them up and shook the sand from them.

"Say," Zelda said, tripping over herself to catch up with Ganon as he made his way to the stable, "You could do with some new clothes. Why don't we go to Kakariko Village? It's not terribly far, and while we're there, we might be able to find out-"

"Kakariko?" Ganon asked. "The place that's past that big rock with the split down the middle? That's where you want to go?"

Zelda smiled. "Well, I simply thought that perhaps-"

"Then I'm going in the other direction," Ganon said.

Zelda balked. "The other direction? To where? The desert?"

"So it's a desert that way?" Ganon nodded and glanced at the sun. It was nearing the middle of the sky. The sand crunched cheerfully beneath his feet. "Yeah. Yeah! Why not?"

"We," Zelda shook her head, "we're hardly prepared!" And besides, Impa was in the other direction. Surely she could remind Ganon of who he really was, and surely she could help Zelda begin rebuilding her kingdom. Her heart swelled- Impa was surely still alive, wasn't she? Some inexplicable conviction in her soul told her yes, Impa was surely still alive. Then again, her feelings had proved her wrong before, and very recently.

"We?" said Ganon. "There's no we. I."

"But-!"

"And no, I may not be prepared, but I feel confident that by the time I get there, I sure will be." Ganon patted the waiting Stew on the side of his neck, and then offered an apple to the laden stag. Then, he called to the merchant with the bowl cut that Zelda had blown off last night. "Oi! Beedle! Grab that other merchant there- I've got some serious bartering to do!"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Author's Note: I'm a little stuck on my original story, so have this instead!


	4. Outskirts Stable

Ganon left the stable with a bulging wallet, two magnificent bows and a bevy of arrows both explosive and not, a sledgehammer, a knife, a standard issue soldier's shield and sword, an excellent set of gauntlets, a new pair of boots, two engorged bags of rice, mushrooms, radishes, carrots, and who knew what else, a pair of pants that actually fit him, the entire dental contents of some poor moblin's mouth, six bottles of milk, five pounds of butter, no less than three dried lizards, and the merchant Beedle's scarf.

Zelda followed on Stew's back in the rest of Beedle's clothes and a wide-brimmed hat.

Above them, the afternoon sun was brutal, but the steady breeze flowing over the fields and parting the sea of grass on either side of the path like hair through unseen fingers made it bearable. Zelda wondered how long it would take for the sunrays to cook Ganon's exposed shoulders and torso like an egg. Secretly, she hoped he turned crimson in the last few hours of daylight.

But the grass was green, the birds sang trills up above, and the clusters of trees disturbing the fields still had full leaves and rich red apples on their branches. For all the turmoil and unrest the land had seen in the past one hundred years, Zelda noticed that the path was still surprisingly well-beaten. It wound westwards in front of them over the gentle hills disrupting the otherwise flat landscape and occasional lakes and groves, and she could see much the same vista as she remembered from before Hyrule fell. On the horizon to the north stood Death Mountain's glowing silhouette, and then west of that the lip of Hyrule Ridge jutting up and pushing back the purple-red rock of Tabantha and the Hebra Mountains, just as she had left it.

Except, instead of sitting regally at the center like a tiara hanging between the brows of a proud, noble ruler, Hyrule castle lurked in the near distance, gloomy, empty, like a gutted, greying corpse with gaping, empty holes where its eyes should be. She turned around to face Ganon as he followed the path around the edge of the Forest of Time, and towards the gargantuan mass of the Great Plateau.

"You know," Zelda said as she and Stew followed behind Ganon and his laden deer, "You've got quite an eye for mercantile pursuits. Kakariko Village is near another settlement known for its merchant and trade population. I'm sure you could barter for anything you wanted, there!"

Stew shook his head as if in agreement.

"Hm," said Ganon. "I'll give you points for the compliment, but nah." He held up a hand over his head and waved behind him, right at Zelda. "But have fun going there without me!"

"But, but, in Kakariko, they have your favorite, ah." it hit Zelda like an entire laden wagon that she had no idea what Ganon even liked, or really anything about him. Link would have been enticed by the Kakariko pumpkins, but his eccentric, flighty shade was a totally different creature, and he even knew it. How was she meant to persuade someone that barely knew himself? "I'm sure your steed would be much happier headed towards the woods and rivers of Necluda and not the dry sands of Gerudo, don't you think?"

"'Bye 'bye!" Ganon singsonged over his shoulder. His stag glared at him as best he could from below.

"You won't even consider it?" Zelda asked, bidding Stew to hurry forwards and bring her alongside Ganon. "Do you have any idea what's out there?"

"I already told you, blondie, I'll prepare myself as I go. It'll be great! It'll be fine. Now, stop following me and go take Stew to your little fairytale village, alright?" Ganon rubbed at the underside of his nose. "If it's still standing, of course."

Zelda's eyes widened. "What is that supposed to mean?! I know Kakariko is still there- I'm not an idiot, you know!"

"I mean, it's been a while, for you."

Zelda ground her teeth. "I even asked a man at the stables, just to be sure!"

Ganon rolled his eyes and mimicked her. Then, he said, "Well, that's great. Why don't you head on over there, like you wanted? Aren't you the one who made a big stink about it?"

Finding Impa in Kakariko wouldn't mean a thing if she lost Ganon, and by extension the hero he'd forgotten he was supposed to be. She flipped her hair and looked out over the nearing, sun-lightened waters of Lake Kolomo. "I changed my mind."

Ganon snorted along with his steed and looked out through a break in the trees. "Oh. That's nice. Very scenic."

Zelda looked out to see what had taken his attention, and found the unassuming Lake Kolomo shining gold in the late afternoon sun. Next to it, the ruined Kolomo Garrison clung to the shore, all but levelled.

"What a dump," Ganon commented. "I looted there earlier." He spread his hands out. "Nothing. No thing. Not a thing. Not even a rusted piece of metal I could shove between a Bokoblin's eye."

Once, the Garrison had been a quaint little outpost, but now, it was like a giant had taken a hammer and smashed it to its foundations. A tattered, ragged, threadbare royal banner stirred pathetically in the breeze. The dirtied red of the fabric looked like dried, crusted blood. Zelda turned away, her hand over her mouth, and instead found the shrivelled, burnt remnants of the tiny town that the soldiers used to sneak away to for drinks. Ruined pillars of wood and stone protruded into the sky like the raised arms of children begging the heavens for help, and still asking.

"It's like they tried to erase that we were ever even here," Zelda said, transfixed. The dichotomy of what she should be seeing and what she was seeing filled her ears with cotton, and her head with a dull throb. How else had her kingdom suffered? Was there anything left for her to rebuild?

What other, more sinister threats were still left even in the Calamity's absence?

Ganon again glanced at Lake Kolomo, now over his shoulder. "Hm. Nice lake, though. Probably has some good fish." He nudged his stag to speed up and leave Zelda alone with her thoughts.

Stew plodded along after Ganon, oblivious and unaffected, even over the shallow pockets of water that had pooled in the road without anyone to shore it up through the years. He snorted when the road ended in a fork, and when Zelda failed to give him any direction, turned right after Ganon and his stag.

"I used to ride here all the time," Zelda said. "With you. Don't you remember?"

Ganon raised his eyebrows and chuckled. "Uh, no." He clicked his tongue and nudged the sides of his stag again. "I don't like being so close to that big cliff, there," he called back. "Especially not while we're on the open road. That'd be stupid." He cast a wary eye to the Great Plateau jutting up from the ground on his left like something could fire down at them at any moment. The man-made stone wall covering its face loomed over them like a mask enshrouding the ever-wakeful eyes of its wearer, vigilant even in disrepair.

They passed another fork in the road in silence. Ganon looked at it with some interest, but then shrugged and stayed his course. He looked up at the stone facade of the Plateau again. "So, is that some kind of fortress?" he asked. "Doesn't look like a structure meant just for reinforcing the cliff. Looks more," he gestured vaguely, "you know."

"No," said Zelda. "That's the site of the oldest known Hylian civilization."

"Oh, yeah?" said Ganon. "Huh. That's cool, I guess." He glared at the facade again as they trotted along. The sun glinted off his back like the glow of a fire on the skin of a plucked chicken, and he pulled his red scarf over his head, and hunched over. "It's pretty secure. Dunno why you didn't put your castle up there, then, but that's fine."

"It was, once. Long, long ago." The Plateau housed Hyrule's oldest buildings, and its most revered, famous Goddess statue. It was also the same site where she had heard the voice of the Goddess, and the last place she had seen the Link she remembered. If anywhere was still sacred in Hyrule, it was there.

"Can you… can you hear anything?" Zelda asked. "In your head. A voice. Music. Anything."

Ganon looked over at her and gave a roguish grin. "What, you think I'm crazy?" He held up a hand. "Scratch that. You think I'd admit to hearing voices in my head, if I did- which I do not, by the way- and grace that with an answer?" He waved her away. "Nah."

"No, no," Zelda said. "Not like that. I mean more like, like," she bit her lip and searched the horizon, "Like someone else- something else- is speaking to you. Something with a great, mysterious power."

"...Can you hear anything like that?"

Zelda's brow creased under the weight of her shame and guilt. "No. But please, listen. Tell me if anything comes to you. Just… just humor me. Please." Stew slowed himself to a stop, and Ganon's stag took the hint to stop as well.

Ganon looked at her, suddenly serious, and Zelda searched his blue eyes. It was like looking into a pool and having the pristine bottom stare right back at you. Honest. Clear. Unpolluted.

Utterly, completely shallow. "Nope." He nudged his stag back into motion. "Why would you ask me a thing like that?"

"The hero can hear the voice of the gods and spirits," Zelda said, quietly. "You could. In your sword, sometimes. And I thought that, well," she gave another longing look to the facade of the Great Plateau, "If anything or anyone were to try and speak to you, they would do it here."

Ganon rolled his shoulders, and his good humor spread over him again. "Well, too bad I'm not the Hero or whatever. But a talking sword! Incredible. In-cre-di-ble. What would a sword even say?" He held up his hand to the sword strapped to his back and flapped his thumb and fingers open and shut like a mouth while a falsetto came out of him. "Hi! I'm a magical talking sword and I like to slice things. Cut him! Cut him! Whee! Yeah! I just looooove killin' things and bathing in the blood of my enemies. Oh boy howdy, I sure do!" He shoved his hand over into Zelda's face. "Hey, kids! I'm Swordy McSwordface. Don't play with me, or you'll never be able to use your hands ever again! Why? Why?! Because I'll chop 'em off, you dumb, knife-eared hooligans! Rip your dreams of competitive thumb wars right out of your poor, bloody little hands- except, you won't have any! Haha!" Ganon held his hand-mouth and real mouth open by Zelda's head for a few more seconds, and then settled back into his saddle when she barely spared him a gloomy glance. "Well, alright, fine, be that way," he said, falsetto forgotten. "What's special about here?"

Zelda wiped at her eyes. "This is where you woke." She pointed to the top of the Plateau. "Up there. The Shrine of Resurrection is in the center." Stew whinnied softly in sympathy. "There used to be a stairway to the Plateau, but one would need to dig it out, now." She pointed to an archway molded in the rock facade, and a mound of dirt spewing forth from it and sealing it all the way to the top.

"A gate?" Ganon whispered, eyes widening at the archway. "There's been a way down all this time?" For whatever reason, he turned from the Plateau to Zelda with an energy that didn't suit him. "This road. How far does it follow along this Plateau? Blondie?"

"Just a little ways. It splits away at the mouth of the pass, there." She pointed in front of her, where a second, smaller plateau sprang up from the land and created a wall on the right of the path, too. Then, she looked at the crumbling upper edge of the stone wall crowning the top of the Great Pateau, squinting in the face of the slowly setting sun, and traced the line of golden-orange light glinting from the uneven edge where the facade abruptly ended and left only exposed rock in its place. "There's nothing up there, is there?"

Ganon urged his stag to speed up into a canter. "Just hurry up! We shouldn't stay so close. I knew I should've taken that other right… Damn it!" He patted his stag's neck. "I know you don't like this, but just a little farther. Please. C'mon." The stag snorted, and then complained with a high whine. "I really didn't think she was gonna come with us, so I didn't wanna give her the bags, okay? I'm sorry!"

Zelda urged Stew along, and he caught up to them at an even clip. "What's the matter?" she asked. "I thought I left you in the most secure place in Hyrule. What's up there?"

Ganon's eyes never left the Plateau's edge. "...I just don't like it." He took stock of the setting sun. "Especially not when it's getting dark."

Zelda shook her head. "The biggest danger at night are the skeletons under our feet, right here," she said. "There's nothing on the Plateau, unless you found something- or did something." She narrowed her eyes. "What did you do?"

"Nothing!" Ganon snapped, now. "Nothing. I didn't do anything. I just don't like it. Alright?" His stag's ears flattened. "Let's just hurry. We should find shelter."

The path followed the curve of the Plateau until it eased away and split again, with one branch bending back to follow the Plateau's retreating face, and the other leading in the opposite direction. The roar of the great waterfall of the River of the Dead roared in the distance with an eerie familiarity in Zelda's ears.

Ganon chose the path parting from the Plateau's perimeter without a second thought.

The pass through the rocks was flat, and the road was packed with gravel instead of only dirt. The faint smell of smoke wafted in the air, and grew stronger the deeper the two of them journeyed into the pass. In the distance, Zelda saw another woman on horseback travelling towards them, a lantern at her side. She waved, curious as to where someone would be heading as night drew near, but Ganon urged his steed onwards and breezed by her completely.

"What's wrong with him?" the woman asked Zelda. Her hair was short and dark, and her horse was white and black speckled beneath its laden, chocolate-brown saddle, though the glow of the lantern hanging in its rider's hand made it look orange. "Is a ghost following him to the stables, or something?"

"Stables?" Zelda asked.

"Sure," the woman said, pointing down the path. "Just around the curve. See the trees by that glowing thing?" Sure enough, Zelda could see a small grove nestled into a hill made of rock- and more importantly, she realized with a start that a shrine sat atop the hill, glowing bright orange in the cracks littered over its obsidian surface. "You'll start going around there, right, and then there's a round building with a giant horse's head on top. Can't miss it. And say, was he riding a deer?!"

A stable was fine, but a Shrine was better. If she could convince Ganon to give her the Slate, she could at least study the gifts of the ancients even if he did slip away forever.

If she was especially clever, though, perhaps she could find a way to restore his memory without Impa's help.

Zelda thanked the woman and sent Stew after Ganon. "Hey!" she called as she neared the trees. "I need the Slate! I need-!" She pulled Stew to a skidding stop as the stable's patchwork metal-and-fabric head grinned down at her from beneath the rising crescent moon. Ganon stood at the counter at the front of the main tent, still mounted, discussing something with the stablemaster.

Unlike the Riverside stable, which was on the beach and in the open air, this one filled its secluded nook in the rocks and trees comfortably. The source of the smoke smell, a campfire and well-used pot, sat on the stable's far side, and an old man and mother and child set leaned against the crates of hay and supplies surrounding it. Zelda picked up on the fragrance of meat and carrot stew simmering in the heat. Behind them, their horses grazed contentedly on the hay laid out in front of their open-air stalls while a lethargic stable hand split up another bale and spread it in front of them.

Zelda dismounted and excitedly led Stew by the reins onto the stable grounds. "There's a Shrine!" she said, eyes shining. "Another one! If you give me the Slate, I can take a look inside, and-!"

Ganon ignored her in favor of the stablemaster leering at him over the counter. "So, my mount. How much're we talkin' for an exception, here? Fifty? A hundred?" He grinned at the stablemaster, earlier fright forgotten. He even smirked at the man. "Maybe if you don't want rupees, I can pay you for boarding my stag with somethin' else," he said. "Some other payment?" He whipped his scarf from his head in a glorious arc, and put on a show by leaning back in his seat with a wink. "We can use one of your beds, if you want. It's whatever you want."

Zelda dropped Stew's reigns and clapped both hands over her reddening face, totally mortified. Did Ganon not have any decency?! Did he have no shame?!

The poor stablemaster hemmed and hawed, and changed color to match Ganon's red scarf, even in the low light of the lanterns illuminating the tent's front counter. "J-just put your steed with the oxen in the back," he said, and escaped to the interior of his tent.

"What is wrong with you?!" Zelda cried.

Ganon turned around. "Oh! There you are!" He grinned.

"Y-you can't just," Zelda shook her head in abject horror, "proposition yourself like that! And in front of all these people?!" If Ganon remembered who he was, he would surely die of embarrassment, right then and there! Shy Link, the chosen Hero of Hyrule, the boy who could barely ask for a glass of water without stuttering, seducing a civilian for a free night's stay?! It was downright scandalous!

Ganon rolled his eyes. "You can do things your way, and I'll do them my way. So you can just sleep alone tonight and buy a bed with the money you don't have, or go right on your merry way! As for me," he gestured to his stag, "I've got a place for both of us, no muss and no fuss."

Zelda grit her teeth. "You have enough money to pay for all of us."

"Oh, what, so you followed me because I've got the cash? Freeloader," Ganon criticized. "Saving you from a big ooze monster wasn't good enough. Paying for your new clothes wasn't good enough. Making sure- for two nights in a row, I might add- that you got to a safe place wasn't good enough, either! Nothing's enough for you! Nothing!" He dismounted dramatically and unloaded his stag. "I'll never be good enough! Oh! Woe is me!" He slung his bags over his shoulder and patted his stag's neck. It spat at him and trotted deeper into the trees.

"Love you, too," Ganon called after it, and then spun on his heel to find Zelda, still waiting. "Oh! You're still here," he said.

She held out her hand. "Give me the Sheikah Slate."

Ganon looked at the glowing Slate affixed to his belt, and then turned his side away from her, defensive. "No."

"Why not?! What's it to you?! It's only a piece of junk in your eyes, isn't it?"

Ganon held a short staring contest with her in the low light of the lanterns strung around the stable, and for a moment, Zelda thought she saw a ripple of something substantial travel across his face. It must have been a trick of the light; it was gone as soon as it came, and left a big, goofy grin in its place. "I just like having the power to get such a rise out of you," he said, and practically skipped off to the group of people huddled by the fire of the cooking pot. "Hello, fellow travellers! It's so nice to meet you!" He grinned. "You can call me Ganon, like the Calamity!"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Somehow, even with his tasteless introduction, Ganon managed to start a drinking circle with everyone at the stables- except the child, who was fast asleep in his mother's lap despite the inebriated cacophony happening all around him.

Zelda, however, was agonizingly sober between the old man, named Toffa, and one of the travelling merchants that happened by. In front of them, Ganon reenacted a raunchy, farcical, untrue tale of how he slayed the real Calamity Ganon between refilling the stablemaster's own cup of mulled wine. Now, the poor man was swaying back and forth out of time with the rhythmic clapping of the rest of Ganon's audience while Ganon himself dramatically pulled the ladle from the stew and faux-fought the shadows dancing in the flames.

"A jab left! A slash right! A parry, parry, parry, just like they teach you in basic swordsmanship, folks, but that's not very impressive without an opponent!" He hopped up onto the top of the stack of crates. "He had me on the edge of the castle walls, then, and I could see it in his eyes that he was about to toss me off the side like yesterday's chamber pot and watch me explode in a rank supernova of extremely handsome shit when I hit the ground, but he wasn't ready for the oldest trick in the book!" Ganon gestured grandly with his ladle. "Hey! What's that over there?!"

The audience, sans Zelda, stopped clapping and turned around. The stablemaster clapped a few more times before he found it in himself to do the same. Nothing was there except the night sky and darkened rocks. Everyone turned back around, confused.

Ganon had his bow drawn, but no arrow notched. "...And then I pulled out my bow and shot it so far up its glowing, goopy asshole that the arrow came out its forehead!" Ganon exclaimed, and punctuated it with the twang of his unladen bowstring.

The audience roared with laughter, excluding the person who had actually witnessed the truth of the situation firsthand.

The old man slapped Zelda's arm as Ganon took a bow. "And the princess! Here! Tell us about your princess over here!" He cackled.

A flushing stablehand and a few tipsy merchants joined in. "Yeah! Yeah!"

Ganon looked at Zelda, stupefied, and then broke out into a devilish grin. He held out a hand. In the flickering light of the fire, he looked like a demon beckoning her into the fiery abyss.

Zelda shook her head, mortified.

Ganon jumped down from his perch and advanced towards her, smoke trailing after him. His smile looked downright venomous. "Ah, yes. Her Royal Highness, the princess Zelda of Hyrule."

"No," she mouthed. "Don't make me part of your schemes," she said. Formal address had never been her favorite, but informal address to the drunken remnants of a broken ex-kingdom she barely knew was unthinkable!

"Oh, you brought this on yourself," Ganon mouthed back.

"C'mon," the old man urged. "Don't leave him waiting!" He and the stablehand to her right pushed her to her feet. "Go on! Have some fun!"

Ganon snatched her hand and pulled her forwards. "The princess, Zelda! Isn't she beautiful, ladies and gentlemen?! The ideal of all Hyrule, and guardian of the land for one hundred years!" He nudged her. "Funny, though, she doesn't look a day over nineteen!"

The little crowd laughed- even the stablemaster gave an obnoxious, high, hiccuping chortle, once everyone else finished.

"Together, we're travelling across the land to rediscover the kingdom once thought lost, and rid the world of its monsters, one well-shot arrow up the asshole at a time!" Ganon postured. He slipped an arm around Zelda and gestured to the crowd. "All for you, my good people."

"How dare you deceive them!" Zelda hissed, slapping his arm away.

"Wasn't this kind of what you wanted?" he shot back, gritting his teeth at her before again smiling at the hodgepodge crowd of merchants, travelers, and vagabonds.

"Kiss her!" one of the merchants, a man with black hair and striking black-framed glasses, called from his seat.

Zelda felt both herself and Ganon freeze. They looked to one another in tandem.

No. absolutely not! Zelda stepped away from Ganon in a panic, searching for an escape to anywhere but in the center of the people's attention.

Luckily, the stablemaster rolled forwards off his seat and into a drunken heap. Ganon took the opportunity and rushed forwards to steady him. "And with that, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to say good night!" He tossed the stablemaster's arm over his neck and helped him into the stable tent.

Behind them, the other denizens complained and whined, but gathered themselves up and followed suit. The woman gathered up her child, the merchants gathered their bags of goods, and the other travelers gathered up enough composure to stumble inside themselves until only Zelda was left by the crackling fire and burnt remnants of stew.

Ganon's head popped back out of the tent. "Princess, be a dear and put out the fire, would you? There was a bucket for water by the horse stalls, but I think Stew stuck his head out and drank it all while I was addressing the good people of Ganonland."

"This is your mess," Zelda shot back. "Why should I clean it up?!"

Ganon blinked at her. "I was trying to do you a favor, really," he said. "I've been promised to," he glanced inside the tent, "another task, and I thought you might appreciate a distraction from-!"

Zelda stormed over to the stalls and snatched up the water bucket with the fury of a thousand Keese overtaken by red-eyed bloodthirst, and an appropriately colored face.

"Thank you!" Ganon called, and then dashed into the stable tent.

A pool of water had gathered not far down the path away from the stables. Zelda had seen it on the way in. She lit a torch and fled down the path towards it, a plan formulating in her mind along with a thousand curses aimed in Ganon's direction. If she still had the power of the Goddess, she was sure she could banish him like the monster he was, and bring back the Hero she knew! But of course, that was wishful thinking. It was her job to make her own magic.

Zelda scooped up a bucketful of water from the pool on the side of the road and made her way back to the stables, a plan formulating in her mind. She would wait until she was sure Ganon was asleep, and steal the Sheikah Slate. Then, she would go directly to the Shrine above them, and then, well, that was yet to be seen.

She returned to the fire- ashes now, really- and it smothered beneath the water with a dying hiss. Then, she steeled herself and peeked inside the tent.

"Please be asleep," Zelda prayed.

The beds in this stable were arranged identical to the last- a semicircle around the edges, with one small table to offset the arrangement. All of them but one were occupied with fully-clothed individuals carelessly draped over their mattresses.

Ganon was not among them. Zelda stood over the snoring stablemaster's bed and examined the pattern of the blankets beneath him, just to be sure.

She ran outside and into the cool night air. Could he have left her? Stew was still in his stall. Was his stag still in the woods? She couldn't tell, with only moonlight to guide her. The dirt crunched beneath her sandals as she ran onto the path again and called his name.

No answer. She tried again.

"Link!" she cried. "Link! Where are you?!"

Her voice echoed between the rock walls containing the path. She pressed her hands to her temples and looked at the ground. It was too hard-packed and well-travelled to leave any hoofprints. Which way had he gone?

It didn't matter; she had to make a decision and take a chance, or risk losing both him and the Slate for good.

Zelda turned around to call for Stew, and noticed a blue light shining from the top of the rocky rise above the stable that had not been there before. She darted towards it to get a clearer view, just to be sure.

The Shrine. It had been shining orange, earlier. It dawned on Zelda- had Ganon actually gone inside? Had he been the one to activate it? Surely not- he absolutely hated the first one and tried to avoid it entirely!

But then, who else could have done such a thing?! Who else had the knowledge, the means, the Slate?

Zelda hurried closer to the Shrine, asking herself over and over again if it was a trick of the white-blue moonlight following over the edges of the glossy black stone, and then froze in place as a soft hum cut through the whining melody of the crickets in the grass. She dove to take cover behind one of the few trees scattered around the stable and peeked out from around the side.

Ganon appeared in the doorway of the Shrine accompanied by a flash of blue light and stepped out into the open air.

He glanced around and crouched down low, like he might be hiding from eyes unseen, and then made his way down the steep, rocky hillside and back to the stable. He scaled the uneven rocks like some kind of flesh-colored lizard and stalked through the grass as naturally as a cat.

Zelda emerged from her own hiding spot and charged into the stable, mouth agape. Only the thud of her soles on the wooden floor announced her presence, though, as not even her confusion could prod her to wake an entire tent full of drowsing drunks.

For his part, Ganon sat up and grinned at her from the end of the stablemaster's bed. He had removed both of their shoes and opened the stablemaster's thick tunic to expose his bare chest, and was now snuggled up beneath the blankets on his other side. "We did it with his hat on," Ganon mouthed, pointing at his snoring bedmate, and then pulled the blankets over his head.

Liar.

Zelda crept over to him and whacked him on the head.

Ganon removed the blankets. "Ow!" he whispered, dramatic.

"I saw you," Zelda accused, voice hushed for the sake of peace and quiet.

"That's not my fault!" Ganon retorted. "I told you what was gonna happen!"

Zelda almost smacked him again, but then stopped herself. "Give me the Slate!" she said. It was still strapped to his waist.

Ganon gave her a blank look, and then mouthed what Zelda was absolutely sure was a monologue of absolute nonsense.

"I will wake up everyone in this tent if you don't give me that Sheikah Slate right now, so help me!"

Ganon rolled his eyes and parroted her sentiment right back to her. She raised her hand to grab him by the ear, but he suddenly grabbed the stablemaster's supine body and rolled it over himself like a human shield.

"Have at thee," he grunted from beneath the other man's weight, and then slid more blankets between their bodies to cover his face. "Good luck explaining to this guy whatever the heck you were tryin' to do."

Zelda made as if to shove him away anyway, stopped, covered her face, stomped her feet in a circle, pulled her hair, and choked down a scream. "I hate you," she said, feeling the fire behind her cheeks heat up.

"Yeah, fine. 'Night!" Ganon said, sliding down the top of his blanket and peering out at Zelda from below the man snoozing open-mouthed on top of him. "Sleep tight!"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Author's Note: Written and uploaded in a hurry! Not super happy with this one, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! Thank you for reading and reviewing!


	5. The Hinox

Not a word eked out of the stablemaster's lips the next morning. In fact, his face was so red that Zelda suspected his pulse would spurt blood out of his mouth if he so much as opened it. He couldn't bring himself to meet Ganon's eyes, either, and the stupid boy was going out of his way to brush hands with him as he passed the price of Zelda's stay over the counter. Actually, he'd been all but fondling the mortified man since the sun rose.

"Is that enough? Or," Ganon batted his eyes and licked his lips, "do you need more?"

The poor stablemaster somehow managed to turn almost purple as he dropped the money, and Zelda had no choice but to look away before she died from secondhand embarrassment.

She gently steered the fully packed and saddled Stew towards the path so she didn't have to watch, but was stopped short by a gentle hail from old man Toffa and his severe hangover.

"Beg your pardon?" she asked, desperate for a distraction.

"Oh, no, no, I only wanted to apologize," Toffa said, his bloodshot eyes squinting out the morning sun. "I never should have put you on the spot like that last night. I got ahead of myself."

A swell of panic filled Zelda at the mere thought of kissing Ganon. "I-it's alright! Everyone was rather rambunctious, and it was all in good fun, you know?" She laughed, but it sounded tinny and airy, even to her ears. "All part of the show!"

Toffa nodded and rubbed the whiskers on his chin. "It's funny, though. You really do look like…" he shook his head. "Nah. Forget it. It's a childish daydream."

Zelda spared Ganon a glance, and immediately regretted it when she found him toying with the brown braids on the side of the stablemaster's face, clearly in point-blank kissing range.

"Oh! No! Tell me! Tell me all about it!" Zelda blurted out, throwing all of her attention onto the old man like a bucket of cold water. "Please! I'm, ah, I'm-!" She forced her next laugh so hard it came out as a hiccup, and her eyes bugged out. "I'm dying!"

"Wh-what?" Toffa asked, eyelids open despite the sun. "C-can I help you, or…?"

"O-of curiosity! Yes! Dying of curiosity! Absolutely! Mm-hm!" Zelda nodded and tried to squelch her imagination into dust before it came up with exactly what was happening behind her. "Please help me! Please! I simply must know!"

"Oh! Well, well, I, I suppose it's sort of interesting, in a way." Toffa removed his boxy hat and massaged his balding head. "You see, it's something my grandfather used to tell me about when I was a child, and it's always stuck with me. But a young girl like you might not see the appeal-"

"Incredible! Stories passed through generations are always the best ones!" Zelda cried. She could still hear Ganon talking in a tone of voice she wished she could eject from her memory. "I am most excited to hear this!"

Next to her, Stew may have been a monster cackling at a downed traveller for all the whinnying laughter pouring out of his mouth.

Zelda elbowed the horse in the side. "Tell me more!"

"W-well, you see, my grandfather told me stories of the princess Zelda's flawless white horse, and how her hair was just as bright and beautiful as the gold adorning her steed. He said if any Hylian was a goddess incarnate, it was she."

Zelda's hand moved to her heart on its own. Ganon seemed far, far away, now, like a black cloud blown away by the breeze. "Oh. Your grandfather, he… he must have thought very highly of the Hyrulean Royal Family."

"Oh, yes. In fact," Toffa grinned and beckoned her towards a stacked bedroll and backpack, "I have- I have a treasure. Here, come see!" He stirred around the contents of the bag, and pulled out a long, thin box nearly the length of his arm span. Then, he bid Zelda come even closer.

"What is it?" she asked, obedient.

"Treasure," Toffa said, and cracked the lid open.

Inside was Zelda's own bridle, polished bright and dyed deep violet like the day she had last ridden with it. The insignia of the skyward bird and three sacred triangles glimmered up at her like new.

She gasped and covered her mouth. "Where did you get that?!"

Toffa cackled, and then cackled some more. "My family swiped it. Couldn't let the Calamity have it. It took too much already." He gazed fondly at the bridle, like the light glinting off the golden metal was seducing him. "I've got the saddle, too. Keep it in a special hiding place."

As Zelda stared at her own reflection, memories of her kingdom flooded through her. The people, their temples, her Champions, and their hopes and aspirations they entrusted her to protect as she lead them all out of the Calamity's darkness and into another golden age, like the one that inspired the birth of the first Hylian kingdom, and then Hyrulean Kingdom, on the Great Plateau.

Most of all, though, she remembered Link scolding her in a rare moment of candid disapproval.

"Y-you can't be so cold with animals and, and, and expect them to love you," Link told her, his cheeks flushed with indignation. "They, they can't read minds! If, if you never let it know early on that you won't hurt them, then they'll always… they'll always think that, that you, you…" He bit his lip and handed the reigns back to Zelda, crushed by his own self-awareness, and then bowed to hide his face. "E-excuse me, your highness. That was uncalled for."

Zelda's amusement hid behind her surprise. "Oh, no, do go on. What should I do for my horse?"

Link looked up at her like she'd just told him that she was going to grow wings like a Rito and fly to the moon. "I, I beg your p-pardon?"

"Tell me how a Hero treats his horse," said Zelda.

Link squirmed in his boots. "Well, you, you just have to, you, uh, y-you have to, to be sure to take the time to, uh, to, to... soothe your mount. That's the only way they'll know how, uh, how you truly feel." He knitted his fingers together like he might die if one of this hands let the other go. "I'd be scared if someone jumped on my back, too." Link swallowed. "That's all."

Meanwhile, Toffa's gaze turned wistful. "When I saw you, I guess I just thought that maybe…" he shook his head. "It's just a series of coincidences. Maybe I should let the past go." The box closed with a stern click. "The utopian kingdom of Hyrule doesn't exist anymore. Not even a Hylian kingdom exists. We're all just scattered across the old roads, now, like the last leaves still growing on the branches of a tree that's rotting from the inside-out."

"The Calamity really is gone," Zelda said. "Really! Link, he… he may be a showman and playboy, but the beast really is dead! It's true!"

Toffa blinked at her.

"Look! I'll show you!" Zelda grabbed him by the arm and tugged him out of the stable gate and then down the path, to where she knew the hills dropped off and the castle was visible.

But Toffa pulled away. "Oh, my dear, don't try and give me false hope. I've spent a lot of time staring at that old castle and telling myself that the slightest ebb of the black mist means the Calamity is passing." he shook his head. "It never happens. It's just a trick of the light, and nothing more." He hung his head and returned to the stables.

"But it's the truth!" Zelda called. "I saw it myself! I sealed it with my own hands! I-!" She gripped her head and pulled at her hair. "Please, just look! It's over!"

"Even if that were true," said Toffa, "then what? What of the monsters lurking on the plains? There's a Hinox on the bridge to the desert, and so we can't go there. The Gerudo used to come through here, but not anymore. To the north are Lynels, eternal storms, the brutal Hebra ice, and nobody to organize or lead us one way or another. What are the Zora doing? Are they alive? Has anyone seen the Rito, or the Gorons? Or are they all dead? We have no idea."

Zelda didn't, either. Still, she strode forwards, hands outstretched as if to grab Toffa by the shoulders and shake his defeatist attitude right out of him, and then stopped short when she heard Ganon's bright and cheery voice say, "Oooh! What's in this box over here?"

She and Toffa whirled around to where Ganon crouched over the box holding the Royal bridle, Stew mouthing at his bare shoulder.

"Could it be treasure?" he asked, his fingers moving greedily as he reached for the lid.

"D-don't touch that!" Toffa all but tripped in his hurry to pull Ganon's hand away. "That's not for you! Get!" He snatched up the box and held it close.

"Ow," complained Ganon. "I just wanted to know what was in it!"

"Just like you wanted to know what was under Embry's clothes, I'm sure," the old man spluttered, clutching the box even closer.

Ganon rubbed his head. "Embry?"

"The stablemaster, you incredible oaf!" Toffa cried, scandalized. "Did you not know his name?!"

"It's not my fault he couldn't get a word out edgewise," Ganon retorted, winking exaggeratedly at Zelda.

"Yes, it is!" Toffa screeched, his cheeks heating up. "It is exactly your fault!"

Zelda glanced at the stable counter and found Embry himself, face buried deeply in his hands, with a female stablehand holding a stack of handkerchiefs at his side.

She put a hand on Ganon's shoulder. "It's my bridle," she said, matter-of-fact.

"Your bridle?" Toffa asked.

"The Royal bridle," Zelda corrected. "He was kind enough to compare me to the princess of old and offered to show it to me."

"Hm," said. Ganon. "Is it shiny? Is it sparkly? Pretty valuable? Very valuable? Like, how much are we talkin', here?"

"It's not for sale!" Toffa insisted, his earlier monologue totally forgotten.

"Besides," said Zelda, "there's no worthy horse to wear it."

"Nonsense! We can put it on Stew."

Zelda gasped. "That mongrel?! Perish the thought!" Stew was a kind and fine horse, but by no means the ideal.

"How dare you look down on Stew!" Ganon cried, holding the horse's cheek to his own.

Stew snorted.

"You pulled Stew from the fields yesterday! He's barely tamed!"

"Fine! We can put it on the wild shithauler," suggested Ganon, gesturing to some nonspecific location in the woods.

Zelda balked. "I beg your pardon?"

"The stag."

"You would put this on a wild animal?!" Toffa looked ready to breath fire. "I'll have you know this is worthy only of the finest horse- a horse white as snow, and faster and more regal than any other! I'll not let anyone take this just to hang it from some sub-par beast and desecrate the memory of the Hyrulean Kingdom and its noble rulers!" He turned on his heel and stormed off, but not before whirling around with a final farewell. "Young lady, I haven't a clue where you're headed, but the moment you find a new and more appropriate travelling companion, you should upgrade!"

He huffed away and into the stables, clutching his box to his chest.

Ganon took stock of the situation and nodded to himself. "Well, I think we'd best get going while the going's good." He gestured to Stew. "Well, if you're going with me, we can take the same horse. You can drive."

"What about the stag?" asked Zelda. "And what about your efforts to send me away?"

Instead of answering her question, Ganon cocked out his hips and put his hands on them. The Eye of Truth on the Slate glowed conspicuously. "Look, do you want this stupid Slate, or not?"

Zelda scrambled onto Stew's back as fast as humanly possible.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

At the entrance to the Digdogg bridge, a Wizzrobe grinned over a sapling and, with a wave of its glowing red rod, disintegrated it into charcoal. It cackled and kicked its spindly black legs with glee, and then floated into the air as it turned the charred, ruined supports of what was once a set of houses into white ash one by one.

"How twisted," said Zelda as they approached. "I'll never understand how simple destruction can bring them such pleasure."

"Well, congrats, you're not a monster," Ganon said. "And anyways, when we get closer, speed up a little bit so that if it sees us it won't catch us. I think there's some moblins around here, too, based on the footprints on the path, so I'd rather not be going slow enough for them to mess with us, either. Mkay?"

"You do know there's a monster living on the bridge, don't you?" Zelda asked.

"You choose to tell me this now?!" His grunt of displeasure was warm on her ear. "What kind of monster? And is this a one-hundred-years-ago monster, or a recent one?"

"Recent. A Hinox. A one-eyed giant that-"

"Yeah, thanks, I know what a Hinox is." Ganon sighed.

Zelda pulled Stew to a halt. "Well, I only wanted to be sure. You can't seem to remember much of anything these days, including how to act like a proper-"

"Alright, alright, making fun of my amnesia, real cute."

"No, really! I can't believe you made that poor man at the stables a complete fool just for a free night's stay, and then you did the same thing the next morning just to have my stay refunded! You're an absolute cur!"

She could hear Ganon's eyes rolling in his skull. "Can we focus at the task at hand first, please? I didn't think getting to the desert would be this much of a bitch from the get-go."

"You know, the road to Kakariko doesn't have-"

Ganon flicked her in the back of the head. "Just speed up, blondie, and trust that I don't want either of us to die. Alright? Can you do that?"

"Will you hand over the Slate?"

"Huh? Yeah, sure. Sure." He pulled his bow from his back- the Bow of Light, actually- and pulled an arrow from the quiver hanging at Stew's side. "Can you shoot a bow?"

Zelda shook her head. "My father found it improper for a priestess."

Ganon ground his teeth. "Of course he did. Great! You just can produce a fancy, magic bow but can't do shit with it. Awesome! Great critical thinking, there, King Rhoam." He muttered a few more curses, and then pulled a sword out of the same bag the arrows were in. Then, he handed it to Zelda. "You get the basis of swordsmanship, right? Stab the other guy first?"

Zelda nodded.

"Alright, good. If something happens, keep that with you. But mostly, focus on moving the horse. Got it?"

"Y-yes," Zelda said, baffled at Ganon's sudden seriousness and fearlessness in the face of imminent danger.

"Now, remember. Stew's laden. Can't go at full speed. Ask for short bursts, and then let him slow down for lots of rests. They might get close, but don't panic unless I'm panicking. Got it?"

"Are you sure it wouldn't be wiser simply to go to Kakari-?"

"Hah!" Ganon stuck his heels into Stew, and off they went.

The Wizzrobe squealed when it saw them, but Zelda flew by it before it could do anything. The twang of a bowstring came next, and then it squealed no more.

"Keep going," Ganon said, pulling another arrow from the bag.

Zelda did, and made it to the bridge with no problems.

The Digdogg Bridge was something of an anomaly in Hyrulean landmarks- it occupied a sacred spot next to the ancient River of the Dead pouring off in a cascading waterfall next to the Great Plateau, but had never been upgraded from a wooden structure to permanent stone, or anything more grandiose than its current iteration. Some part of it was replaced every ten years or so, to the annoyance of the Gerudo and Hylian people of the area.

It spanned a series of isolated islands jutting up from the pool below, and was seen by many as the only passage between the lush fields and prosperity of the Hyrulean plains and the arid, cruel, hard truth of the Gerudo desert. Some believed the Calamity's first incarnation, an ancient Gerudo king, spread his curse to the rest of Hyrule because of this bridge, and the reason it was wood was so it could burn and fall should the Calamity's vessel try to cross it again.

Zelda thought that was just superstition talking, even if the Calamity had begun as a flesh-and-blood human. The bridge was a wonder of engineering, but in obvious disrepair. Several wooden slats along the walkways were damaged, warped, or broken. Luckily, it was still stable.

They made it to the first island landing of the bridge. Then, the second.

Over Zelda's shoulder, Ganon laughed. "Oh! Ha. Woah! Woah! Stop the horse! Stop!"

"But-!"

"Just do it!"

Zelda pulled Stew to a stop and could practically hear his sigh of relief. Then, Ganon dismounted.

"What are you doing?" Zelda asked, whirling around in search of danger around her, behind, her, above her, and then-

-in front of her. A fat blue Hinox lay snoring on the next islet in the chain, a swarm of dragonflies lighting and taking off from its bulging stomach with each breath it took. Beyond him was the final stretch of the bridge, and then the sandy-colored earth of the canyon leading to the desert proper. When she squinted, she could make out a few bokoblin camps.

The last sign of the green grass grew on the Hinox's napping island.

Ganon was still giggling at the Hinox. "Heh! Bet there's no grass beneath its ass. Probably just a big bald spot on the ground from where it's been lying all this time." He hurried over to the side of the bridge and grabbed one end of a snapped tension rope dangling from one of the main wooden supports. Then, he pulled a knife from his boot, cut a long section of the rope free, and coiled it up around his arm.

"What are you doing?" asked Zelda. If this idea was like any of his previous ones, it was probably moronic.

"Don't worry! It'll be great." Ganon hurried over to Zelda and tapped her on the thigh. "Here, get off real quick. I need your help." He began digging around in Stew's packs until he produced the sledgehammer.

"Whatever it is, give me the Slate before you do anything stupid and get yourself killed," Zelda said.

"Look, you wanna help me be a hero and help whoever travels through here out, or do you wanna be a pain in the ass?"

"Slate first!" demanded Zelda.

Ganon gave her a withering look. "You know what? I was gonna give this to you when we got to the desert, but nevermind!" He turned around and marched towards the Hinox. "Go have fun in Kakarakakakakakokomo Village being Slateless and alone, your Highness. And if I die, it'll have been because you didn't want to help me. So live with that!"

That got her off the horse, and Zelda hated herself for it. "Alright! Alright, fine! I'll help you with your idiot plan!"

Ganon's smile was like a thousand suns. "Really?! Really! Yes!" He hurried back over to her and handed her one end of the rope. "You're the best! Just hold this, stand where I tell you, and try to be as unappetizing as possible."

"What?!" said Zelda, mentally kicking herself when her voice rose and the Hinox stirred.

Ganon got low, like the ground might open up at any moment, and gave her a grimace. "And don't do any of that," he shushed, a finger in front of his lips.

A quick, brave glance told them that, mercifully, the Hinox was still asleep.

"Okay!" said Ganon as he grabbed Zelda by the back of her arm and guided her closer to the monster. "Over the bridge and onto the grass. Let's go."

They crossed onto the solid earth, and then some, until Zelda was standing by the edge of the little island. The oblivious Hinox smelled like smoke, rot, and an unbelievable amount of bodily gas.

"How long do you think it's been here?" Zelda asked. "How many travellers has it eaten whole?"

"Hinox don't eat large kills whole," Ganon said.

"What?"

"They prepare them, like we would a deer, or something like that. They like cooked meat. And they take out the bones to chew on later. Sometimes, they preserve them and store them somewhere for later. I've heard of entire smokehouses of corpses being found near Hinox territory. There's no way to know." Ganon brought her to a stop. "Right here. And don't move, and don't let go of the rope. Got it?"

Zelda stared at him, mouth agape.

"What, is that too difficult of an instruction, or are you baffled that a monster is capable of intelligent thought and complicated, premeditated tasks?"

Zelda's mouth screwed into a frown and she planted her heel firmly on the toe of Ganon's boot.

"...Right!" said Ganon, limping away with his end of the rope. He straightened the whole thing out perpendicular to the edge of the island and then dropped it on the ground.

Then, with a thumbs-up to Zelda and a mouthed "hold the rope", he put the sledgehammer in his hands and crept towards the Hinox's head, one foot in front of the other.

The beast stirred. The rusted metal weapons hanging from its neck clinked softly against one another, and its massive two-fingered hands twitched as if to grab the neck of some invisible creature and wring it. Ganon pushed forwards, undeterred.

Zelda bit the inside of her cheek and held her breath while her pulse pounded in her ears. What was she doing? How had she let Ganon talk her into this? What if it woke up and snatched Ganon from the ground, and he ended up in a human meat locker somewhere? What if it took both of them? Should she turn around and run away? What if-?!

She was cut short when Ganon brought the hammer down right on the Hinox's head, and its scream echoed through the canyon walls. Stew whinnied from his perch.

The giant monster sat up with another scream and a set of noises that Zelda swore sounded like curses, and then looked around with a bloodied, blackening eye.

"Hey! Shitface!" Ganon dropped the sledgehammer and clapped his hands. "Hey! Hey! Down here! You think you can still look down on me when you can't see worth a damn?! You gonna go cry to your mommy?! Or did you eat her like you ate everything else?!"

Apparently, the Hinox had strong feelings for its mother. It was on its feet and screaming right back in a matter of seconds, grabbing blindly for the source of the voice.

"That's right, you big, blue, blind buffoon! I just said that! I _said_ that!" Ganon took a few steps back and clapped his hands some more. "Hey! Hey! Hey! Are you gonna do something about it, or are you just gonna roll over and die?!"

The Hinox stumbled towards Ganon, hands outstretched, and Ganon led it towards the center of the rope. Zelda bit back a scream as he narrowly avoided the monster's grasp.

"You missed, you waste of space! You missed! Did your cannibalized mommy raise a quitter, or did you eat her before she could teach you to be anything else?!"

The Hinox roared and grabbed at the noise again. But this time, Ganon rolled out of the way and grabbed the end of the rope.

"Pull!" He cried to Zelda. "Pull, now!"

She did. The Hinox's left ankle hit the rope, like the trunk of a blue tree an instant before an axe cut it clean through, and soon the monster's entire weight was against the braided strands. Zelda's hands screamed in pain as the rope's fibers tore into them, and she had to defy Ganon's instructions and let go.

It didn't matter. The Hinox was already toppling headfirst into the water below, and sent up a great corona of white spray when it hit the surface. Zelda was soaked head to foot.

"Get back!" Ganon called, and then she felt him pulling her away from the edge of the island.

In the water, the Hinox was screaming and floundering for a handhold, but couldn't get a grip on anything. Its damaged eye was totally black, and its voice echoed off the wall like it was not one creature, but an entire chorus, screaming in pain.

Ganon let go of her and whistled. Stew came running and stopped beside them, fearful of the thrashing water. Ganon took an arrow from one of the saddlebags, notched it, and drew back the bowstring on the Bow of Light.

"Sorry, man," he said, and shot right through the monster's singular eye with a glorious streak of light.

The Hinox seized up, and then stilled. Its body sank into the water, and then, after an eerie stillness, the ring of ruined crater of its skull and the widest point of its stomach broke the surface.

Zelda asked, "Is it dead?!"

Ganon shrugged. "Corpses float. Anyways." He pointed to where the Hinox had been napping moments before.

The grass was still green, and a curved sword with a golden hilt glimmered within it.

"That looks recent."

Zelda knew that make, and that signature gold. "A Gerudo warrior," she gasped, covering her mouth and hurrying over to it. "No!" She fell to her knees and scooped it up, despite her screaming hands. "You… you said they preserve their meat, right? Do you think she could still be…?"

Ganon shook his head. "Hinox enjoy the hunt, but they don't usually play with their food." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "They're monstrous, but rarely cruel."

The sword trembled in Zelda's hands. "Then why would they work with the Calamity Ganon?! Why would they ally themselves with evil incarnate?! If they aren't cruel, how can they possibly-?!"

Ganon pulled the Sheikah Slate from his belt and traded her for the sword. "Bokoblins and moblins, maybe at the beginning, but you're thinking too much about it. A bunch of people died, and these monsters realized they could move in. The Calamity didn't care if they did or not, so they followed it around. That's it."

Zelda lost her wits and threw the Slate at his feet. "How can you say that like it's nothing?! Do you know how long this battle has gone on?! Do you know how many centuries this kingdom has tried and failed to eradicate these beasts before more tragedy strikes, only to fail?!"

Ganon glared. "Geez! Listen to yourself. They say the best killers believe in their causes, but boy! 'Eradicate these beasts'! You'd make a great little warrior if your daddy had the brains to put a weapon in your hands!" He picked up the fallen Sheikah Slate and replaced it in his belt.

Zelda's back teeth grew that much closer to grinding themselves into a thin powder. "You're the one who bludgeoned it half to death, and then shot it the rest of the way!" The inside of her mouth tasted like metal.

"Yeah," Ganon said. "You're welcome."

" _I said we should have gone to Kakariko!_ "

"And nobody ever stopped you," Ganon said, offering her his hand. His gauntlets were already worn on the palms of his hands.

Zelda slapped him away. It hurt twice as much as it should have.

"Wow, you really can't see the range for the peaks," he said. "Whatever. I'm going." He mounted Stew and nudged him to move.

Stew refused.

Honestly, Zelda wanted to let him go, now more than ever. "Fine! Just leave the Slate and get out of here!"

"I did, and you threw it at my head!" Ganon said. He clicked his tongue and nudged Stew again. "C'mon. Show's over."

Again, Stew refused.

"She doesn't want to! Let's go!" Ganon almost shouted. "Now!"

Stew stomped his foot and tore at the grass with his hoof.

Ganon dismounted and squeezed the base of his palms over his eyes. He paced in a lazy circle, and then took something else from the saddlebags. "Alright, fine! It's gonna be this way?!" He stormed to the edge of the island, by the Hinox corpse, and jumped off.

Zelda found she still had enough fondness for him left in her heart to feel a jolt of panic shoot through her, but then she realized he was cutting through the air with a paraglider held above head. He landed on the Hinox corpse and pulled its necklace of weapons from the water.

"By the time I finish getting these back up there," he called, "You'd better be ready to leave! I'm not getting stuck with no shelter or escape route on a tiny island in the middle of the wild with a couple of delusional ninnies!" He pulled the knife out of his boot and got to work.

Zelda paced in a circle, too, and then sat down, livid. She got back up a moment later to pace again, and stare at her blistered palms.

How could Ganon be so blase about the death of a Gerudo and almost _sympathetic_ to the death of the giant, carnivorous beast that killed her?! Had he only claimed the name Ganon as a cruel joke, or was there some truth to it?!

And, the more she thought about it, was he right about the monsters?

The Hyrulean Kingdom was an empire of alliances, with the original Hylian kingdom at its center. The genesis came after the warring parties in the ancient land of Hyrule- the Zora, the Gorons, the Gerudo, and the Hylians themselves- came to an agreement to stop fighting one another and instead join forces and eradicate the monsters plaguing them.

The Calamity's genesis in human form, Gerudo King Ganondorf Dragmire, had turned his people against the Hyrule of old by taking the side of the monsters, which he supposedly created.

Or had they simply always been there, the same as the denizens of the future Hyrulean Kingdom?

Did it matter? Ganon killed them, just the same, and Ganon was still the Hero, Link. And he still had the Slate, which Zelda had stupidly refused in her rage.

She stopped cold. Why was she such an idiot?! She couldn't even corral one headstrong boy into his sacred duty! Why was every task given to her so impossible?! He was leading her around by the nose! Was she just incompetent, or was it never in the cards for her to succeed?! Was she really just an heir to a kingdom of nothing?!

Zelda picked up a rock and hurled it over the side of the island. Then, she realized that she might have hit Ganon by accident, and rushed to the edge.

The rock sat on the Hinox corpse's bloated stomach, idle and nonthreatening. Ganon, however, was nowhere to be found. She scanned the water, panicked, and sure that he must have drowned, until she spotted the telltale glow of a Shrine lurking on a rocky sandbar beneath the Digdogg Bridge. And it was glowing blue.

"What?!" Zelda whispered to herself. "Another one?!" Embry's embarrassment robbed her of the chance to ask him about the Shrine by the stable, and she'd been so thrown by the events of the day that she'd never pinned him down for answers!

But how could she, now, when the only thing keeping him close was the will of the horse?!

As if on cue, Stew ambled over and mouthed at her shoulder.

Zelda threw her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry I spoke poorly of you. You're wonderful. Thank you for everything."

Stew grunted.

Just then, Ganon dragged himself over the edge of the island and rolled over to face the sun, winded. "Whew! Oh goddesses, that was hard…"

Zelda pulled a waterskin from Stew's saddle and brought it to him.

"Just pour it straight on my face," Ganon said. "I… I need a minute before I can get up. That was… that was…!"

Zelda made him sit up, anyway, and gave him the waterskin. "You'll choke." She noticed he had the rope from earlier wrapped around his waist. "What's that?"

"The weapons. I gotta… pull 'em up. Ugh…"

Zelda pulled the rope up in his place, and winced as her raw flesh rubbed against the unforgiving fibers. Still, she gritted her teeth and soldiered on.

When she turned around, Ganon's blue eyes were narrowed and his stare aimed directly at her. "Why are you being so nice?" he asked.

Zelda shook her head. "I'm sorry I was so angry. I'm only frustrated."

"You get frustrated a lot."

Zelda willed her feathers to remain unruffled. "I wanted to apologize to you for it, and I realized it wasn't fair for you to bear the brunt of the work all by yourself." She looked into Ganon's surprised eyes. "I really am sorry. And I'll… I go with you to the desert, if that's what you want." The admission tasted vile in her mouth, but if that was what she must do to earn Ganon's trust, so be it. "Can we please get along?"

After one magical moment of total silence, Ganon took another deep drink. "Not buyin' it." He popped up. "Let's give Stew some water and apples, yeah? He deserves it, especially since we asked him to carry two people and all our junk at the same time. Let's not do that again. And bandage your hands- you're gonna get crap in the wound."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 **Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!**

 **Ganon's Stolen Heart Count:**

 _1) Embry (Outskirts Stable)_


	6. The Half-Monster

The canyon passage was unexpectedly uneventful. The only Moblins they came across were shot in the head before they could so much as throw a rock in Zelda and Ganon's direction.

However, Zelda knew there were more. Hastily constructed wooden lookouts spiraled within the canyon walls and on the sides of the cliffs, and the remains of several ruined camps greeted Ganon, Zelda, and Stew throughout the passage. The wind howled through and stirred only the dust coating the rocks and made the landscape all the same yellow-brown color. The only life to the path was the occasional paper lantern dotting the way to remind travelers that this was, in fact, still a road.

Ganon gave a low whistle for the wind to suck away. "This place blows."

"It used to be incredible," Zelda defended, pointing upwards. "The tops of the canyon were into gateways, and they filled travelers with a sense of grandeur. It's just that… they've collapsed, now."

Ganon clicked his tongue and gently tugged Stew along. "Don't get points for used-tos."

Zelda took a drink of water to wash her retort out of her mouth. "So, what's your plan for taking Stew through the desert, hm?" she said instead. "Horses don't do well in this sun, with this terrain growing sandier and sandier."

Ganon's sour expression could curdle milk. "I can't believe you'd use Stew as something to needle me with."

"I was being sincere!"

"You're only sincere when you get what you want," Ganon shot back. "You're just sitting there waiting for some way to make me do your bidding. I know it!"

"That's untrue! I'm only concerned!"

Ganon crossed his eyes and raised the pitch of his voice in a poor impersonation. "That's untrue! I'm only concerned!" He slapped his hands on either side of his face. "Oh, no, I'm a princess who doesn't know what to do when I can't boss people around anymore! Oh my! Guess I'll just go pout about it."

"I told you, I wanted to get along!" Zelda said through clenched teeth.

"I told you, I wanted to get along!" Ganon mimicked.

"Listen, you! I have done nothing but-!"

Another voice interrupted them. "Hey!"

Zelda and Ganon got out of one another's faces long enough to find the source.

A handsome young man with tanned skin, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes waved at them from around a bend. "Hey there! You mind if I make a deal with you?"

Ganon stopped dead in his tracks. "Hel _lo_ ," he said, with the same emphasis he used for every single, solitary word meant for Embry's ears. He tossed his hair and flashed his white teeth. "And what can I do for _you_?"

Zelda felt her ears turn color, and not from the sun.

The man grinned and winked right back. "Heh. I appreciate that. But business first!"

"Oh, this can be business," Ganon said. "If the price is right."

Zelda slugged him in the arm. He took it like a true Champion, but shut his mouth for at least a second.

The man only smirked and ran his hand through his perfect hair. "No, see, I had some trouble with monsters and my horse ran off. I'm in a tight spot here, and I need a way to get to the closest stable. You know?"

Ganon's flirtatious exuberance dropped clean out of his body language. "Nope. Sorry. Can't help you. 'Bye!"

Zelda grabbed Ganon by the ear and held fast. "You could come with us!" she said to the man. "Is there another stable ahead?"

The man put his hands up in front of himself. "Stable? Oh! No, no, you're headed to the desert, and I'm trying to get as far away from the desert as possible. You know? I need to go the other way, to the Outskirts! Besides, I'd, uh, hate to impose on you and your boyfriend-"

"She's not my boyfriend," Ganon deadpanned. "But no, I'd hate that, too. Let's go, blondie."

Zelda tugged Ganon's ear again, and he stayed put.

"Ow!"

"Well," the man said, "maybe we could help each other out, here. Horses are a burden in the desert, what with the heat and the sand, so maybe-"

"Absolutely not!" said Ganon.

"I'd pay you for him! Didn't you say this could be business, if the price was right?"

"This is different!" Ganon said, with even more feeling.

"Excuse us for a moment." Zelda tugged again and dragged him behind a rock while he complained all the way. Stew followed, belatedly.

"I'm not selling Stew," Ganon hissed, dropping his voice for the sake of privacy.

"Then don't! Just loan him until he makes it to the Outskirts, and then send money for Embry to keep Stew until we come back!"

"Are you kidding?!" Ganon exclaimed. "That guy's a snake. I know it. I just know it! He'll turn around and sell Stew the minute someone else comes along! Did you see how he just saw my little flirting routine and just went with it?! Did you see that?! That is the act of a con artist! You hear me?! A CON! ARTIST!" He jabbed at the ground to punctuate his point.

Took one to know one, Zelda supposed. "Then how about this- you give Stew to him on loan, and you send money for him to board Stew with, plus an extra fee for his trouble. With that kind of incentive, he may just take the deal and leave Stew be."

Ganon stared at her, and then crossed his arms. "You obviously don't know how scummy people think, do you? He'll take the money and sell the horse, and not lose a wink of sleep over it. I guarantee it."

"But just look at Stew! Do you think he can really make the whole journey?"

Zelda pointed to their faithful steed. He was panting, and they'd neither ridden him nor asked him to run since the incident on the bridge, and Ganon had insisted on giving him water regularly. The long and short of it was, he wasn't made for this climate whatsoever.

Also, Zelda suspected that he was an older horse with a startlingly fragile constitution, and that Ganon didn't want to admit to any of it.

Ganon bit the inside of his cheek and pulled the waterskin out of the bag to offer to Stew. The horse drank, greedily.

"I bet that asshole won't think to get him water, either."

"It's for his own good," Zelda urged.

Ganon worked the inside of his own mouth until Stew drained the waterskin completely, and then threw his arms into the air. "Fine! Fine, I'll do it! But we're gonna do this my way, okay?! And you're going to carry some of this!"

"Understood!" said Zelda, glancing at Stew. This was the best she could think of to pay him back for what he'd done for her. She patted him on the neck. "It's going to be alright."

Ganon glanced between the two of them, and rummaged around in one of the many magic bags strapped to Stew's side. He produced a paper and a piece of charcoal, scratched out something Zelda tried and failed to read, and folded the letter around a single silver rupee.

He handed the packet to Zelda. "Hold that for a second."

Then, Ganon untied his red scarf, and Zelda had to snicker at his peculiar tanline. He ignored her and wrapped the letter inside the scarf, and finally tucked the edges under so it held together.

"It's so he won't feel that there's money inside," Ganon explained.

"Where did you get the paper?!" Zelda asked instead.

Ganon ignored her- again- as he strode away from the rock and towards the man. Zelda and Stew hurried after him, admittedly curious.

And so, the exchange began.

"This horse is really important to me," opened Ganon. "He brought me and my lover together, alright? I can't just part with him like it's nothing."

"Oh! I completely understand!" The man did have a winning smile, even if everything Ganon thought about him turned out to be true. "I promise to pay you well! Three hundred rupees!" The first offer was on the table.

Ganon shook his head. His shamelessness knew no bounds. "Like I said, I can't just part with him like it's nothing."

Zelda busied herself by unloading Stew of his burdens, one eye still trained on Ganon.

The man still smiled as he made his second offer. "Three hundred and fifty."

A no-sell. Ganon crossed his arms and looked away.

"Three hundred and… seventy-five?" asked the man, smile weakening as he coughed up the final bid.

Ganon relented. "Alright, alright, you've talked me into it. This is just a tough decision, is all." He looked over his shoulder at Zelda. "But my sister and I could really use the money, so," he sighed, "It's a deal."

The auction ended, and the man dabbed at his own forehead with a sigh or relief. "Excellent! Really! You've helped me out so much! I can't thank you enough!" He stuck out his clean hand to shake.

Ganon did not.

"Well, there's just," Ganon bit his lip, "one thing."

The catch. Of course.

"Uh?

"When you get to the stable, can you give this to the stablemaster? His name's Embry." Ganon held out the envelope. "It's a little stuffed. There's a- oh, it's stupid, but it's sentimental- a scarf for my lover in there along with the letter. Just tell the stablemaster it's for, oh, ha," Ganon mustered up a blush, and Zelda had to admit she was impressed, "it's for Ganon's lover, and he'll give it to the right person. Can you do that for me? You're going there anyways, right?"

The man nodded and gave another dazzling smile. "Oh, sure! Absolutely! It's my pleasure!" He traded Ganon the letter for the money, and Zelda lead Stew over.

"Thank you again," she whispered in his ear, and handed the reigns over to his new owner.

Ganon stayed put until Stew was well out of sight.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Damn it!" Ganon screamed to the heavens, and kicked the wall of the canyon. "Damn it, damn it! I never should have done it! I knew it! I knew that sunuvabitch was a lying piece of shit! We asked if there was another stable, and he said _no_!"

Not an hour after they separated from Stew, they found a stable just at the end of the canyon, just beyond a set of even more fallen stones. Ganon had stood trembling for a solid three minutes before he lost his cool completely and felt the need to bludgeon the earth with his own body.

"That shiteater! That… that _hare bastard_!

'Hare' was an archaic slur for Hylians, even one hundred years ago. It only ever appeared in older writings, and Zelda wasn't sure if she was more baffled that Ganon knew it, or more baffled that he'd used it.

"I swear if I ever see him again I'm gonna rip the hair on his head and the hair on his balls off, and put them in the opposite places with his own blood as the glue!" He slammed his fist into the canyon and earned himself a loud thud for his trouble. "I hate him! Does he have any idea how good of a horse he's just tried to screw over?!"

"Maybe whatever you did with the letter will help," Zelda suggested, tactfully failing to mention that Ganon had, effectively, sold Stew in earnest. "What did you write, anyway?"

Ganon's eyes felt like Guardian lasers where they trained on her. She wondered if that was how he thought of her derision, back when he was still her appointed knight.

She stiffened and waited for the inevitable- for him to tell her that he hated her, and that he never should have listened to her bleeding heart suggestion that they let Stew go.

Instead, he pulled the Sheikah Slate from his belt and dropped it in her hands.

"There's a Shrine here," he said, gathering up the bags he'd dropped when he'd started his temper episode and heading towards the stable itself. "I know you saw it, and I know you're dying to know what's in it. So go have a blast."

Zelda considered the Slate, the telltale orange glow of the Shrine, and then at Ganon's retreating back. "Are you going to leave?" she called.

Ganon didn't answer. He didn't even turn around.

If he did leave, Zelda would at least have the Slate. And more than that, she could ask the people inside the stable which direction he went. At least, assuming Ganon didn't lie about his destination. But there were only two directions he could possibly go- either into the desert, or back to Stew, and that was a fact. No amount of his tricks could help him fly over the canyon to go anywhere else.

Besides, he clearly wanted to be left alone, and Zelda was more than happy to oblige. If nothing else, Ganon did care for his horse. Perhaps she should try and be more sympathetic towards him, since he apparently did have a heart somewhere beneath that chronically bare chest.

Though, this boon of the Slate was markedly underwhelming, considering everything she'd endured from him just to get her hands on it.

Zelda bit her lip and looked up at the black shrine perched just above her, and tackled the short climb to get there. The Slate pulsed with a soft blue light as she held it to the circular pedestal at the entrance and held her breath.

The Slate gave a soft chime, and the barred stone doors to the Shrine elevator lifted up and out of the way as the lights on the Shrine itself changed to the same blue color as the lights on the Slate.

"It worked," Zelda breathed, and stumbled inside. The elevator's blue light spilled out at her feet and enveloped her as it took her down, down, down.

Underground, the air was cool and still, but not moldy. She opened her eyes to find another palanquin with an ethereal and glowing blue curtain sitting right in front of her, and a short set of stairs leading up to it. The constellations of orange dots and lines lining the golden, textured walls and the eerily smooth obsidian ones alike were similar to the ones within the first Shrine.

The room itself was totally empty, besides the palanquin.

She climbed the stairs and touched the center of the faint Eye of Truth staring out at her from within the blue curtain. The light dissolved into a million tiny slivers and revealed another black, bug-eyed body meditating beneath an enormous red and white hat.

Zelda curtsied. "I entreat thee, oh wise one," she said.

Its dry voice made the dusty winds above sound moist by comparison. "The Hero… he did not complete the first crucial trials."

Zelda blinked and looked up. "Excuse me?"

"The Slate," the Sheikah took a deep and shaking breath, "is capable of so much more. You only need to activate it." A cough. "It holds great power."

"How can I do that?!" Zelda asked, leaning forward over the thin railing separating them. "Please! Tell me the secret of the Sheikah Slate!"

"It was yours, first," uttered the Sheikah. "You can decipher it. I believe…" The corpse's voice faded, and its body dissolved into nothing but dust. "Thank you for… coming for me. And tell the Hero… tell him..."

Another blue light enveloped Zelda. "Tell him what?!" she cried, holding the Slate to her heart. "What can I tell him when he denies he's the Hero?!" The glow overtook her vision, and she had to close her eyes.

When she opened them again, Zelda found herself above ground, at the entrance to the Shrine. Immediately, she hurried back into its tiny alcove and stomped on the elevator. "Take me back down! Take me!"

It obliged. The glowing light returned and sucked her down into the earth. The room at the bottom was exactly the same, sans the corpse.

Totally empty.

"No," she said, hurrying to the the palanquin and then falling to her knees. "How can this be?! Why have you disappeared?!" Zelda's voice echoed faintly off the glossy walls. "Why have you left me?!"

She wiped at her eyes and looked down at the Sheikah Slate. It was a black rectangle with sandy-gold canyons carved into it to hold the tiny rivers of light outlining the shape of an Eye of Truth on the back, and a flat and smooth other side, the same as one hundred years ago. Nothing seemed special or different about it, until she tapped the screen.

"Where are my pictures?" Zelda muttered to herself. "Or my notes, or drawings? Everything is gone! It's all blank!" She scrolled through empty screen after empty screen until she thought she might lose herself in the vacuum.

Would Ganon know? Could he have done something to make everything else go away? Was he lording it over her, as some kind of insurance that she would always go along with him?! She thought back to the entire situation with Embry, and his haggling over Stew.

Erasing her files for personal advantage sounded exactly like something Ganon would do. And to think, she was almost starting to feel sorry for him!

Zelda stormed back to the elevator and let it take her back to the world on the surface, and then jogged down the rocky hill and into the dusty stable.

Ganon was surprisingly easy to find- bags in a pile in the corner, a drink in his hand, and saying something to make a young Gerudo woman blush and the young, smooth-faced stablemaster look like he might start, too. Ganon himself had acquired a long sand-colored cape he'd draped over his shoulders, but still no shirt.

Whatever emotional turmoil the Stew debacle had caused, it was long gone, now.

"You!" Zelda called.

"My! I'm popular today, aren't I?" Ganon grinned and pushed his hair from his face. Zelda realized from the color of the liquid and the smell of his breath that his beverage was alcoholic.

Zelda snatched away his glass and put the Slate on the table. It landed with a plunk, and if she had been in a less heated state, she might have regretted being so forceful. "What have you done to it?!"

Ganon blinked, bewildered. "Nothin'. I don't even know enough about it to have done anything to it, except maybe get my fingerprints on it! Is that what this is about? I mean, I guess I can spit-shine it for you, if that's the problem..."

Zelda tapped the Slate and swiped through the various empty screens. "Here. What do you see?!" she asked.

"Uh," Ganon's eyebrows pinched together as he wracked his brain for some kind of clever story, Zelda was sure. "nothing?"

"Exactly!"

"Exactly?"

"Yes!"

Ganon stared at it with even more puzzlement. "Uh… huh…"

"Where did all my pictures go?!" Zelda hollered.

"Pictures?" asked Ganon. "What pictures? How am I supposed to know?! You locked me in a cave for a hundred years! Don't expect me to know things! I'm like a newborn child learning to walk for the first time!"

"Don't give me that excuse. I saw you kill two monsters with the grace and skill of a fully grown, experienced knight."

"Alright, maybe I'm not a newborn physically!" Ganon pointed at his skull. "But _mentally!_ "

" _Where are my pictures?!_ "

"I dunno! Maybe they're what got stuck up your butt to make you act like this! You try lookin' there?!"

Zelda tossed the contents of his drink into his face.

Ganon took a dignified second for himself before he spat the unwelcome liquid from his mouth and wiped his face dry. The Gerudo and the stablemaster both watched in abject horror.

"Alright," Ganon said, "I'm gone."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

If the Gerudo Canyon was repetitive and barren, the Gerudo Desert was a complete nothing. Heat waves shook the horizon along with the grooves the wind carved in the sand. Zelda thought that perhaps she could make out the Gerudo's main city far in the distance, but for all she knew it was simply a mirage with a dying sandstorm hurling through the background. When the wind blew, it assaulted her ears, and when she spoke, the sands let it flow uninhibited in all directions. Sounds from far away sounded close, and vice-versa. Distance was impossible to gauge.

But mostly, it was hot, and the air was so dry that Zelda could feel the water draining from her body as she hurried after Ganon. His sand-colored cloak covered the top of his head to his ankles, and even with the added weight of all his bags and weapons, Zelda had almost lost him twice already.

"I'm not leaving until you tell me what you've done to the Slate!" Zelda called, ignoring the nagging flavor of cotton blooming in her mouth and the light headache threatening her skull.

Ganon ignored her.

"I mean it!"

Still, nothing.

Ganon might be stubborn and resolute now, but Zelda had travelled the desert before. At night, the temperature dropped severely, and that was when Ganon would be at his most vulnerable.

As would she, admittedly, but she could cross that bridge when she came to it.

She willed Ganon turn around with her eyes, and grew more and more perturbed with each step away from her that he took.

"Answer me!" she called.

For an instant, she thought she'd earned a victory for herself when he stopped in his tracks at the top of a dune and looked over his shoulder to his right.

"It's about time," she said, and hurried up the dune. "I demand answers from you! If you think this is funny, then I-!"

Just as she came close, Ganon took off running.

How dare he!

Zelda gaped after him, rage mounting, until she noticed the shock of flaming red hair waving in the breeze like a long-lost and misguided desert shrub. She put a hand atop her hat to hold it down and took off running towards the downed traveler, and pushed the sand beneath her feet into the wind as she skidded to a stop. Ganon was already crouched over the poor soul.

"Is she alive?!" Zelda asked.

Ganon reached for the waterskin on his belt- when had he refilled it? Was that what he had been doing at the stable?- and told Zelda, "Take off those metal weapons and flip 'em over. Looks like they got caught in that sandstorm, since they're half-buried. Must've started over here."

Zelda brushed off the sand from the warrior's back and did as she was told.

Wherever this Gerudo had been, it was far from here- her wide, flat sword was rough iron instead of gold metal and silver steel, and her enormous bladed shield was chipped and scratched nearly everywhere. The bow was even more perplexing- it was gigantic and comically heavy, and Zelda wondered how any Gerudo- or any creature- could reasonably use it continuously and reliably during combat.

Beneath the weapons, the Gerudo's back was completely bare. Her wild hair blew over it like a jungle eager to fill even the possibility of an open space.

Zelda grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed. The body budged, but not enough. She was enormous, even for a Gerudo! She was possibly even larger and broader in the shoulders than Lady Urbosa! Zelda grunted and tried again, desperate, this time with her whole self.

The body flipped over, hands helplessly splaying out over the sands.

Zelda got a good look at the face, and then the rest of the body, and realized this creature was no Gerudo at all.

"Link," she gasped, backpedaling away. "Link, this is a Lynel!"

Ganon, who had finally unscrewed the waterskin, gave it a glance and then did a double take.

"Correction! That's almost a Lynel." He gestured to the creature's hooved feet. "Look. He's about two legs too short to be a proper Lynel, and he ain't got the horns." Ganon screwed his mouth into an appraising frown and prodded its chest. "And he ain't quite got the pecs and biceps, either. Still nice, though." He patted the creature's right breast.

"Link, that thing is a _monster_!"

Just then, the demi-Lynel seized and opened its eyes. Zelda screamed and held its shield up in front of herself.

Meanwhile, Ganon straddled it and sat down on its chest, hard. The air in the demi-Lynel's chest escaped with an audible ooph.

"Zelda, grab its shoulders, please," Ganon said, grabbing the bewildered creature by the chin and holding their eyes level.

"Wh-what?!"

"Don't ask questions, just do it!"

The Lynel roared and started to struggle, squinting in the sun and kicking up sand as it fought to right itself.

Ganon slapped it, open-palmed, in the face. It stared up at him, totally stunned.

"Today, blondie!" Ganon commanded Zelda.

Against her better judgement, Zelda forced its shoulders into the sand and pressed with all of her weight.

"Good. Keep his head steady," Ganon instructed, and then poured some water into the demi-Lynel's mouth.

The creature looked offended, at first, but the moment it registered the presence of water, it struggled again, this time with eyes desperately focused on the waterskin. Zelda struggled to hold on as the sand churned around her.

Ganon slapped the demi-Lynel again. He rewarded its dumbfounded expression with another sip of water.

"You gotta drink it slow," he said.

Zelda risked looking into Ganon's face, surely the absolute portrait of frightened confusion. "You can't be serious! This is a monster, not some… some horse you can win over with kindness and a firm hand! It'll kill you the moment it can!"

"Don't be like that. He's lost and scared in a desert, with two knife-eared creatures pinning him down and blathering at one another in some strange language, and dying of dehydration. Cut him some slack, alright?" Ganon took the water away from the demi-Lynel's lips and shushed it when it growled and tried to make a move and grab the waterskin again.

"This is insane! You're a madman! It's a mindless killing machine! We're both going to die!"

The demi-Lynel opened its mouth, and Ganon shoved the waterskin into it before it could roar, or breathe fire, or do whatever it was a monster like that could do, and the beast's adam's apple worked double-time as he gulped down the sudden stream forcefully coursing down his throat.

"Shhh, it's okay," Ganon said t the demi-Lynel. "We're gonna get you out of this desert, and it's gonna be fine."

"Link, we can't possibly bring him with us!" Zelda screeched, absolutely certain she had lost her mind in the heat and this was all a dream. "What if it goes after the Gerudo?!"

"He's not gonna do that," said Ganon, entirely too calm. "This is the last place a Lynel would want to make his territory. They like mountains and plains, like horses do. He'll follow his instincts!"

"I really don't think you-!"

The demi-Lynel's arm came up and pushed the waterskin away from his face.

"I can speak for myself!" he gasped. "Get off me!"

The two Hylians both screamed and punched the demi-Lynel square in the nose, and then Zelda found Ganon holding her and squealing his head off like one might in the face of a particularly nasty insect, and then fainting outright in Zelda's arms.

The demi-Lynel rolled in the sand and covered his nose with both of his enormous hands, growling and cursing all the way. The waterskin lay next to him, emptying out into the sands.

Zelda gaped, completely lost. "Y-you can talk?!"

"Yes!" bellowed the demi-Lynel, his consonants severely impaired by his assaulted nose. "Maybe if you didn't try and waterboard me, you might've gotten the message!"

"We- I- he wasn't waterboarding you! He was trying to save you!"

The demi-Lynel snatched up the waterskin and gestured with it. "Could've fooled me!" He scrambled to his two hooved feet, and then steadied himself with great effort. Then, he opened up the cloth bag tied around his hips and checked its contents.

Ganon swayed towards the ground in Zelda's arms, and she almost fell into the desert sands after him.

The demi-Lynel stared at the two of them, green eyes squinting through the relentless sun in the last hour of brutal daylight. Zelda dragged Ganon's body backwards, and reached for the demi-Lynel's abandoned shield still baking in the sunlight. The beast made no move to stop her.

It didn't matter; his plan was clear enough to Zelda. Soon, the moon would be competing for the sky and the sands would become like snow in the darkness. He'd kill them then, under the cover of darkness, and stain the moon blood red even without the Calamity's help.

Or maybe not. Zelda's veins held the blood of the goddess, and it was her power that locked away the darkest evil of the world only three days ago. A single Lynel- barely a Lynel- should be nothing to her.

She held out her hand, palm forwards, and willed a holy light come forth and bind the evil before her.

Nothing happened. She tried again. Still, nothing happened. The goddess Hylia hated her.

The demi-Lynel stepped closer, despite her warding hand. "Heat's getting to you." He held out the waterskin. "There's still some in here. I'll trade you." Now, he nodded at Ganon's limp body.

"Wh-what are you going to do?" Zelda grit her teeth. Disrespectful wretch or not, she couldn't leave Ganon to die! "Are you going to eat him?! Is that what you want?!"

The demi-Lynel scoffed in disbelief. "Eat him? No."

"What do you want? Why are you here?!"

The beast scratched the thick cloud of red hair on its head. Zelda noticed he had none on his chin, and his horns were almost nonexistent. His left ear swatted away the wind.

"A bird. A giant bird fell from the sky and ran me off my brother's mountain." He pointed behind himself, to the faded, dusty silhouette of the mountains at the edge of the desert. "Then, I," his hooves shuffled the sand around, and he almost looked nervous. "I ended up here."

Zelda narrowed her eyes. "Why don't you go back to your mountain?"

The demi-Lynel's tail twitched. "Why don't you go back to your field and plateaus? Hylians belong in the heartlands, don't they?"

"We-!" Zelda ground her teeth. Ganon was heavy, and useless. "That's not your business, monster!"

"Why I'm here isn't your business either."

"I'm the rightful ruler of this entire land. I should say it is my business!"

The demi-Lynel's eyelashes stuttered in the face of her declaration- or maybe the sunlight. It glazed him in fiery tones over his entire, strange body and outstretched arm. "The Hyrulean Kingdom hasn't fallen?"

Zelda dared not grace that with a response.

"You're angry," said the demi-Lynel. "And you need water. Drink this. I will take him." He looked around. "This place. Is it better at night?"

"I never asked for your help, beast," spat Zelda.

He glowered. "I never asked for yours, either."

They stood at a standstill, the sun drawing ever nearer to the horizon. A tumbleweed blew by.

Ganon moaned, helpless. Zelda could not hope to carry him across the entire desert.

Zelda bit her lip, and then took the waterskin from the demi-Lynel's outstretched hand. In turn, he scooped up Ganon and threw him over his shoulder, and then slung Ganon's abandoned bags over his other side.

Zelda claimed the demi-Lynel's sword and shield, and kept one eye on the dunes and one on him.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 **Author's Note:** **Thanks so much for reading and thank you even more for reviewing! I don't write more of this without the gratification, admittedly, so if you want more, you have to ask for it.**

 **Also, I'm doing Linktober Quest this month, and I'm doing illustrations related to this story. So, if you'd like to see Zelda's newest "friend", the demi-Lynel, you can find him here along with some other ink drawings! Here is one of Zelda in Beedle's outfit and a picture of Ganon being himself.**


	7. The Ambush

Zelda could feel herself fading with each step. The temperature was dropping, and even with all the remaining water from the canteen in her body, her head still throbbed from dehydration and her mouth felt like it was full of more desert sand. Around her, the disorienting, omnipresent roar of the icy wind swept across the dunes and tugged at the occasional cactus.

Before her was an oasis. It had been there since an hour ago, and was somehow still an eternity away even as the palm trees clearly grew larger and the sand mounds on the horizon sharpened into squared-off adobe buildings draped in carpets and tapestries. The corona of rocks around it stood out of the sand like voles peeking out at the earth from their holes- too blind to see what was in front of them, but craving the sunlight anyway.

Behind her was a monster riding unconscious on the shoulders of a half-beast.

"That place," the demi-Lynel said. "Is it safe?"

The leather and steel of Zelda's newfound sword and shield felt like a ball and chain threatening to sink her into the sands at her feet. She eyed her strange tagalong with contempt. Why he had yet to strike, she did not know. "Not for you, beast. When the people there see you, they will surely try and kill you."

The beast grew quiet and shifted Ganon higher on his shoulder.

"I should carry you," he said, and he may as well have upended Zelda and put her on his shoulder for all the start the thought gave her.

"Excuse me?!"

"You're weaving," he explained.

"Nonsense!" said Zelda, staggering.

"You're weaving," the beast repeated.

"You won't touch me," she spat. "Not now, not ever. Do you understand?"

The beast grunted. A ghastly sound, like a tiger peering through a jungle at its next mark and salivating. It made the chills wracking Zelda's body even worse.

"You're cold," said the beast. "This place is draining your energy. We should at least start a fire and halt for the night. Then, your companion will also awaken."

"He's hardly my companion," Zelda said, kicking the sand beneath her feet for emphasis. "If I didn't feel I needed him, I would leave him to die in this goddess-forsaken place." Her tongue was dry. She wondered if her rant was worth the cost of the moisture barely still inside of her.

Regardless, her answer gave the beast pause. "So you have," he cocked his head, and if he wasn't a nightmare made of pieces of different creatures stuck together, it might have been cute, "no attachment to this man? None whatsoever?"

"I should think not!" Zelda confirmed. "But I can't have you killing a Hyrulean subject, even if he is a disgrace to not only the kingdom, but his race, and his entire lineage!" She coughed. It sounded like the very air in her lungs had turned to dust.

"Allow me to carry you," repeated the beast, his voice a low, deep rumble. "You'll exhaust yourself."

"And you'll kill me either way!" said Zelda. She descended into more coughing.

"I will do nothing like that," said the beast, hurrying through the sands until he was in step with her. His hooved feet dragged the sand with him like two beasts burrowing through the ground just beneath him. "You defeated me, fairly, and then spared me. It wouldn't be right to do something underhanded."

The oasis before them was close. Zelda could hear the crackling of the fires within the tents from where she stood, and could make out the people sleeping before them. If she wanted to, she could scream for help.

So, as her legs broke into a run towards the oasis, she did.

"Help! Help me! A monster! I'm being accosted by a-!"

Something grabbed her ankle, and the next thing Zelda knew, she was tumbling to the ground and wincing as the chilled sand grated against the bare skin of her stomach. Something icy and rough grabbed her arm and flipped her over, and then she was cornered by a pair of enormous round eyes looking her over out of sync, like Robbie's goggles from long, long ago. Their pupils glowed a disturbing, soulless purple. Between them sat a curved horn and a scaly, saffron snout.

The Lizalfos gurgled gleefully, and then the air around its horn started crackling dangerously and giving off a smell like burning air. The metal equipment on Zelda's back hummed as if it could catch the electricity like a sickness from the air, and she froze in fear as the realization that she was going to be fried to a crisp, here and now, before doing anything for her kingdom.

But before that happened, a roar echoed over the sands and a huge, hooved figure pushed the Lizalfos from her and rolled over the dune with it, the creature's neck in her savior's claws.

The demi-Lynel took its life with a sickening crack, and dropped it as its head fell too far to the side to be natural. He straightened his back beneath the crescent moon, and Zelda expected for all the world that he would raise his face to the sky and roar to some evil, ugly, forgotten god that he had drawn the blood of another beast, and promise the blood of a priestess of the goddess be spilt next.

He did no such thing. Instead, he trotted over to Zelda and knelt by her side. She scrambled away and held up the demi-Lynel's own sword and shield in front of herself from her place on the ground. They were heavy, and her arms trembled both in the effort and the cold.

"Are you alright?" the beast asked, stopping short of her and rubbing his enormous hands on his thighs. He might look nervous, if he were a Hylian and not a creature of darkness.

Zelda gaped back at him, lost. Had he just saved her? Why? Weren't Lizalfos and Lynel on the same side, united by the Calamity? Wouldn't it be easier for the beast if she were dead and he was left to plan the best way to take this oasis and the poor souls within it? And why was he staring at her? Could it be he was thinking of the best way to push her into the sands and snap her neck, too? Was this a trick?!

Her thoughts were cut short as the demi-Lynel looked out over the oasis behind her and gritted his teeth- _was that a wince?_ \- and then galloped towards her when Zelda hear the telltale commotion of people coming up from over her shoulder.

"What are-?!" the shield and sword fell from her hand as the beast scooped Zelda up and sprinted across the sands and away from the oncoming search party, cresting a rise in the sand that butted up against the oasis outcropping and finally sliding behind one of the larger rocks. He pressing himself against it and pulled Zelda to his chest, and then peered out over the sands from whence they'd fled.

Zelda struggled against his chest, mortified and horrified, even if his body was mercifully warm. How dare this creature touch her!

"Hold still! They'll hear us," the demi-Lynel said, air whooshing from his lungs as she punched him just beneath his sternum.

"I want them to!" Zelda cried, using the surprise to pull herself from his grasp. "Help! I'm-!"

The demi-Lynel grabbed her again and pressed her face against him, harder this time. She fought until she freed enough of her face to bite his arm.

He tensed against her, a low yowl threatening to burst from his throat, but he managed to keep both it and Zelda down. " _Look_ ," he hissed instead, and held Zelda's face to witness the figures skating over the sands and towards Ganon's prone and abandoned body. "Just look!"

The color of their clothing was unclear in the low light, but there were a dozen of them, all dark figures moving over the dunes like coyotes crouched and waiting for their next kill. Several held bows, and others held some kind of curved sickle that glinted cruelly in the moon's light and the ambient light of the fire just behind them. They peered around the desert, cautious and utterly silent, and then gathered around Ganon's body like flies.

"What-?"

"Shh," urged the demi-Lynel, tugging her closer.

One of the figures- a smaller one, with hair tucked tightly beneath their hood- broke from the pack and crept towards the abandoned sword and shield Zelda dropped when the beast beside her had spirited her away. The figure circled around it, pensive, and then stood to attention when it spotted the circular dents of the demi-Lynel's hooves cutting into the sand, and looked up towards the rock where Zelda and the demi-Lynel hid. The light was low, but Zelda recognized the symbol on the figure's perfectly smooth mask as plain as day.

Yiga.

The figure notched their bow and stepped closer, and Zelda's fingers dug deeper into the demi-Lynel's chest with every second that passed. Soon, the archer was close enough that Zelda could make out the places that the fabric of their suit changed color from red to black, and could hear the barely-there plodding of their feet as they still grew ever closer.

Soon, they would turn and see Zelda, and as that instant came nearer and nearer, Zelda came up with a plan. When the Yiga was upon them, she would grab them by the head and pull them down into the demi-Lynel, and he would snap the warrior's neck the same way he had the Lizalfos. And then, after that, when the commotion drew the attention of the other Yiga, they would run to the next rock in the circle and repeat the process, with Zelda acting as bait and the beast as the muscle. She tensed against her unlikely ally, and his grip around her loosened like he knew exactly what she was thinking. She looked into his green eyes, and the wide, round pupils glinting yellow-green in the low light.

The Yiga was almost on them. Zelda let go of the demi-Lynel and prepared herself to spring. Just a few more steps, and-

"Who the heck're you?!" Ganon's slurred voice echoed over the still sands, and Zelda almost jumped out of her skin.

The demi-Lynel pulled her back to him and pressed her face into his chest before she could shriek. He smelled like a horse.

The Yiga turned on their heel and hurried towards Ganon.

"Silence!" One of the larger Yiga pointed their sickle at him. "How dare you demand we address ourselves before naming yourself! We are the proud Yiga! Hear our name and succumb!"

Next to Zelda, the demi-Lynel growled. "Vermin," he whispered. "One shot my brother in the flank."

Ganon snorted, and as he did, more Yiga presented their sickles to his exposed neck.

"It's freezing out here," Ganon said, nipples visibly agreeing, "And you wanna sit here and lecture me about manners in your skintight little bodysuits?! There's nothing left to the imagination, there, man! Cover yourself!"

The Yiga was unamused. "Name yourself, Hylian, and swear your allegiance to Ganon- or die!"

"Swear my allegiance to Ganon?" Ganon grinned, and Zelda could feel her stomach eating itself in dread. "Well! This is a fantastic coincidence, because I happen to _be_ Ganon!"

Zelda's forehead smacked into the demi-Lynel's chest.

The Yiga paused, like the cool wind gently blowing through passed through their suits and froze them, suddenly. Then, the leader thrust his sickle at him, demanding.

"How dare you imply yourself an equal to the great Ganon! Your insolence damns you!" He brought his sickle back, and in one graceful motion, he swung.

Zelda reached for him and made to scream, but the demi-Lynel held her fast and pressed her mouth against him. And at the last second, Ganon rolled beneath the attack.

He got to his feet and rushed the Yiga leader, and the next thing the man new, his own arm and sickle was jammed against his throat. The other Yiga turned their weapons accordingly.

Ganon only grinned as he eyed the blades on the other side of his new human shield. "So. Are you guys a "sacrifice our comrades for the cause" type, or do you actually value the life of your people?"

The Yiga leader in his arms answered. "Ganon will revive me as reward for my sacrifice! Eliminate this man!"

Ganon snarled. "Guess that's a no," he said, and pushed his hostage into the throng of blades pointed his way, and the Yiga scrambled as they tried to either get around his body, avoid stabbing him, or push one another out of their path.

Ganon scrambled towards the oasis encampment and scrambled atop the rock outcropping sheltering Zelda and the demi-Lynel, and pulled the Bow of Light off his back.

"So," he said, drawing the bowstring back, "You don't think I'm really Ganon." The holy light of the goddess ran across the string and down Ganon's arm like an arrow made from the sun itself, and then light exploded from the bow like it was a supernova held in his hands. His cape billowed behind him, catching the light and throwing out shadows great and terrible as it flapped in the wind brought about by the magic in the weapon. They moved over the sands and tents like ancient beasts just on the other side of the curtain separating the land of Hyrule from the Dark World, hungry to break through and enter through.

The Yiga stopped their squabbling, awestruck.

Ganon took the cue. "You doubted me! You disrespected me! You invoked my name and assumed yourself worthy of a blessing for your transgressions! You dare call yourselves my followers?!" Half of his face was blown out in white light, and the other side was swallowed by the darkness as his voice raised to a crescendo over the crystalline hum reverberating from the bow and sounding out over the desert like a divine bell. He looked every bit like an angry god. "Well, I've got a message for you: _Eat shit, nonbelievers!_ "

Ganon fired directly into the center of the throng of Yiga, and they screamed and scattered like insects as the light touched them and burned at their clothing, dropping their weapons as they ran away from the oasis in an incensed panic.

Ganon drew and fired on them again, and again, just to prod them along. Then, he pointed the Bow of Light straight into the sky and shot at the heavens. Zelda watched the bolt ascent in an arc before shattering at the apex and raining gold over the desert.

One of the Yiga screamed his last.

"Oops," Ganon said, and then turned around to look over his shoulder and into the oasis itself.

"Come out," Ganon demanded. "Reveal yourselves, or I'll smite you all!"

Zelda could not see into the oasis, but a moment later, Ganon drew another bolt. "I said, come out! Or consider yourself smote! Smitten! Smited!" he paused, at a loss for conjugation. "In deep shit!" The light licked down the rock and at Zelda's skin and hair.

A muffled voice came from somewhere: "Come untie us, you moron! We can't move to show ourselves if we wanted to!"

Ganon's bolt vanished, and visibility from the moonlight and scattered fires of the encampments gradually returned. "Oh," he said, replacing the bow across his torso. "Sorry!" He looked down and to his right, directly at the embracing Zelda and demi-Lynel, and grinned.

"Oh! You're still here." Ganon gave them both an appraising look. "And getting along nicely," he said, raising his eyebrows.

A wave of temper and embarrassment rocked Zelda to her core, and she shoved her way out of the beast's arms.

"In the morning, we'll hunt you down on sight," she spat at the demi-Lynel, and then climbed over the rock and hurried into the oasis below.

* * *

As it happened, the oasis of the present was almost the exact same as the oasis of Zelda's day. It was both a spring and a mercantile hub, and the only destination between the desert canyon and the Gerudo settlement. More to the point, it was the last place open to men in Gerudo society, and merchants both Gerudo and Hylian populated the many pop-up tents and lean-tos of richly-dyed rugs and fabrics valiantly keeping out the sand, when they weren't held captive by the Yiga.

"They've grown bold thanks to the sandstorms," the proprietor of the oasis's one inn, an older Gerudo woman with close-cropped red hair, told her. "The Divine Beast went on a rampage and then went missing. "Some say the Yiga have it, or that it fell into a sinkhole to be buried forever by the will of the goddess. Personally, I couldn't say. We only know it's gone."

It was, to say the least, deeply troubling to Zelda. How could an entire Divine Beast go missing? Without Urbosa, it was impossible to pilot.

And Urbosa, she was…

Zelda pushed the thought from her mind. The important thing now was to convince Ganon that, as a man, there was nothing here for him in the desert, and then guide him to Kakariko Village, and to Impa. That, and find out what on earth he had done to the Sheikah Slate to take away all of her data! She pulled out the Slate and fiddled with the controls herself, one more time, just for good measure.

It was still gone. There was little she could do about it. Not here. What she needed was a laboratory with a working Guidance Stone. Then, with the power from the Stone, the problem might become clearer and she could solve it.

Zelda exited the adobe inn and emerged within the tiny circle of huts and storefronts encircling the tiny gathering of water nestled at the center. Ganon was probably still asleep in the Gerudo tailor Rhonson's tent after reenacting yet another grandiose and overblown version of how he "became Ganon" by defeating the original Calamity in crass and impossible ways.

She rubbed her eyes and descended the adobe stairs of the inn. Her head throbbed lightly, and she still needed more water after the exhaustion of yesterday, but it would pass with some attention. She looked up at the oasis spring and searched for Ganon's sandy cloak and hair.

Perplexingly, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, two women Zelda did not recognize stood in front of her like they had been waiting on her.

The shorter of the two was a pale-skinned Hylian dressed in the traditional clothing of the Gerudo, complete with a veil and headdress. Her compatriot was tall and muscular, with a veil to obscure her jawline, and Zelda would have assumed she was a Gerudo born and raised if it weren't Zelda's own white dress she was wearing as a long skirt.

"Link," she hissed, headache returning full force as she ran up to Ganon and the demi-Lynel. "What are you doing?! What is that beast doing here?!"

Ganon struck a pose and tucked a piece of loose hair behind his ear. "Looking hot in our disguises, obviously," he said. "I know you're jealous."

"That's never going to work! They'll know immediately!" she cried.

Ganon waved her off. "Yeah, like you weren't just fooled even though you know damn well I would choose to do something like this as my first resort."

"Link!" she said, teeth gritted. "Why have you brought the monster with you?!"

"Zip it," he said. "My name isn't Link. And he's not a monster," Link said, gesturing to the demi-Lynel. "This is Ryhall. Rhyall, this is blondie."

"I thought you said her name was Zelda," said Rhyall.

Ganon shrugged. "Same thing. Anyways, the skirt hides the hooves nicely, and the headdress eliminates the horn issue as well. Works out great, if you ask me."

"My horns will grow in," said Rhyall, clenching his fists and displaying something like embarrassment.. "They only haven't, just yet."

Ganon patted him on the arm. "Yup. Anyways, we gotta get going if we wanna get going. You get me?"

Zelda glared at Rhyall and his green eyes. He stared right back as if her ire was something to lap up, not shrink from in shame "I am not going anywhere with him," Zelda said.

Ganon snatched the Sheikah Slate from Zelda's hands before she could say a word, and turned on his heel. "Great! See you," he said, and waved over his shoulder.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Thanks so much for reading! I appreciate all of your reviews as they are what keep this story going.**


	8. Gerudo Town, Part 1

Zelda swatted at Ganon like a Bokoblin screaming at another for stealing its food.

"Give that back!" she insisted, her composure gone along with the eerie chill that covered the desert the night before.

She kicked at his heels and swung at his torso, and fell victim to her own momentum each time Ganon either dodged her, misdirected her tantrum, or let her hit him and then took a step away to rob her of her balance on the follow through. They might have been dancing, if it weren't for the unforgiving, steely look Ganon was giving Zelda and the ugly, furious red infecting Zelda's pale skin.

Frankly, it was hard for Rhyall to watch. He wasn't sure what to do- he had an agreement with Ganon, but a deep obligation to Zelda, and he couldn't imagine prioritizing one over the other.

The whole thing made him wildly uncomfortable. He wondered what his brother or father would do, if they were in his shoes.

Between the cape and his water, Ganon was managing the heat, but the sun still had a hold on Zelda. It showed in her cheeks, on the caps of her shoulders, between the cracks in her lips, and in the sweat on her brow. Rhyall wondered if he should offer to carry her again, just to save her strength.

If Ganon noticed Zelda's exhaustion, he didn't care. He shoved his palm onto Zelda's forehead and pushed her away from him, facefirst.

Rhyall steadied her with a gentle hand and a withering glare to Ganon.

Zelda started at Rhyall's touch, like it electrocuted her, and then pushed him away.

"Don't touch me!" she commanded.

Rhyall pulled away and gripped the white skirt around his waist instead. Too fast. He being too forward, and too soon.

He turned to Ganon instead. "Stop this," he said to Ganon from beneath his veil. "Just give her whatever that is. It was hers to begin with."

Ganon held up the black, rectangular Slate he'd stolen and tilted it back and forth, taunting.

"And what if I don't, big guy? What then? She tackles me again? Insults me again? Calls me by the wrong name? Accuses me of something I didn't do? Gets angry that I saved her?" He looked over his shoulder, and his knowing blue eyes leered at Rhyall from between his own veil and sandy-colored hair. "Regrets sparing my life, maybe?"

Rhyall ducked his head and pinned his ears beneath his headdress. This may not have been his fight, but he could only stand idly by for so long. He absolutely couldn't take this anymore, especially if Ganon meant to insult Zelda's choice- and imply that she'd go back on it, on top of everything else.

"Give it back to her and stop this fighting, or I'll end our deal and make you," he said.

Ganon raised his eyebrows, and then, with a shrug, unceremoniously dropped the Slate in the sand.

"Have it your way, then."

Zelda scrambled to her hands and knees to reclaim it from the desert and clean it off.

"Be sure to say thank you to your prince charming over there," Ganon said, hoisting his stuffed satchel higher on his other shoulder and sauntering across the dunes without breaking stride.

Zelda ignored him right back from her place in the sand.

Rhyall knelt down beside her. "Is this object really so important to you?" he asked.

It looked like a piece of some kind of carved, inlaid black stone to him. It was no larger than a book. Perhaps it had some significance in the Hyrulean religion that Rhyall was clueless to.

"If you like, I can carry it in my bag to keep it away from Ganon," he said.

Zelda pulled it to her chest like it was a child. "No!" she said, her face even redder and sweatier than it had been a moment before. "This is none of your concern! You should not even be here with us! Get away from me!"

Rhyall pulled his hand back, aghast. "I don't mean to upset you," he said. "Ganon only told me that-"

"What?!" Zelda's golden hair travelled in a spiral around her as she whirled around to look him straight in the eye. "He told you what? What did that disgraceful heathen tell you?! Some lie of convenience he could use to make you do what he wanted, which was antagonize me?! What?"

Usually, in the face of this level of unwarranted hostility, tradition called for a blast of flame in the face of the offender, or anything that resulted in the immediate removal of the offender's face. However, this was different. Zelda had remained standing after striking Rhyall down in the desert, and then let him live even when she could have impaled him on his own sword.

Even if she spoke with derision towards him, that kind of act was an agreement every Lynel knew well. His face flushed from beneath his fur.

"He said you needed someone to protect you both as you travelled, and that in return, you would help me find my way back to my brother's mountain."

Zelda's face twitched, and then contorted into a mask of absolute fury.

"He what?! He used me for some kind of deal without my consent?!"

"Well, ah," Rhyall cleared his throat. "Ganon was speaking for himself, really, and said that you were free to do as you please. But of course, I'm very willing to aid you." Rhyall twisted his fingers in the white skirt around his waist. "Should you need it."

"I do not," said Zelda, standing. She sent sprays of sand into the wind with each heated step she took.

Rhyall pawed at the ground, conflicted.

In front of them, Ganon stopped his journey through the sands and turned around.

"Rhyall," he called. "You comin', or did you forget the entire point of this trip?"

Beyond Ganon was a massive fixture of cream white stone, with flecks of turquoise pressed into it like jewels lying across the decollate of the redheaded women from the oasis before. Humans milled about in front of it, distorted by the shimmering heat, and Rhyall could hear something that sounded like running water trickling far in the distance.

"Well?" said Zelda. "Go on. You heard him. He's the one you've made a deal with, isn't he?"

"Yes," said Rhyall, "but I-!"

"I don't need your help, beast," she spat, and strode towards a black structure standing far to the right of the city gates. "Stop following me!"

Rhyall looked between Ganon and Zelda, and then trotted to Ganon with a scowl.

Ganon smacked Rhyall's chest with the back of his pale hand. "Chin up," he said. "She's just as bad with everyone else, and she was and is worse with me. It's not just you." He gave Rhyall a once-over with his eyes. "Though, it probably doesn't help that you're, y'know, well… y'know. Anyways."

Rhyall grunted. "It doesn't help that I'm what?"

"Uh," said Ganon. "Oh! Wow! Look! There's a city! In the middle of the desert! Wow! Can't believe I almost missed it! Let's go in, shall we?"

Before Rhyall could so much as think of pressing the issue, Ganon had him by the hand and halfway through the open gate.

The two guards nodded as they went by, and shouted out something in greeting.

"Saa'vaq!" Ganon called back, his voice airier and lighter than usual.

Once they were safely past, Ganon turned to Rhyall with a wink and whispered, "Whatever you do, don't take your costume off, okay? We need them to think both of us belong here."

"Both of us?" asked Rhyall, looking around. "But aren't you a-?"

Suddenly, everything clicked.

It should have been obvious when Ganon had approached Rhyall with a the skirt, the top, the veil, two melons in a bag at his side, and instructions for him to put all of them on his body, but Rhyall was naive when it came to Human traditions of dress. Initially, he thought it was some stupid prank, and then, when Ganon changed with him, part of some elaborate ceremony.

It was neither a prank nor tradition. The guards at the gates were women, and so were the two figures standing beneath the palm trees lining the main thoroughfare just beyond them, as were the Gerudo calling out to pedestrians in the shops built into the white clay walls. The little ones hustling by no higher than his knee were all girls, too, and every pedestrian passing by was undoubtedly female, even the one lone Rito ogling the stalls. All the Gerudo were women, and they only allowed women into their city.

Their red hair was tied up in gold and silver, and their stomach and arms faced the sun proudly, like it couldn't burn them. Their sheer and patterned pants exposed their calves, and some wore veils over their faces like Ganon and Rhyall. Others wore golden armor instead.

Ganon dragged Rhyall deeper into the city. The main thoroughfare was wide and lined with shops and dwellings built into the white stone walls, and at the end of the street stood a palatial, square-edged building crowned with a waterfall running down from a red, natural rock formation plagued with trees and ferns. Rhyall ogled at it, but Ganon pulled him in another direction and down another street lined by walls with rooms and dwellings incorporated inside of them. In fact, Rhyall realized that the whole city was cemented together in plaster and stone like one single entity, with houses and businesses bored into the walls like caves in a cliffside instead of in standalone buildings. The rows of manicured palm trees emerged from the borders along the streets like they were built into it, too. Abstract mosaics of turquoise dotted the plaster and stone, and the sound of water fell down from over the tops of the walls in a steady rush.

The Gerudo nodded and smiled as they passed by, and Rhyall picked out the scent of incense wafting from their skin between the other, more mundane smells of produce, animals, and desert air.

Mostly, Ganon waved at the Gerudo who turned to stare at them, or greet sa'vaaq. While he was appropriately disguised, most of his body was hidden under his cloak like a lizard taking shelter beneath a rock. He should probably take it off if he was so worried about standing out.

The jewelry on his wrists jingled as he pulled Rhyall deeper into the town and down a sidestreet just past a produce stand piled high with plump hydromelons. Nobody else was around except a little girl scratching pictures into a pile of sand built up by the wind at the base of the wall.

"Forgot to say this earlier, too- try not to talk," said Ganon. "Your voice might give away that you aren't actually one of their own."

"What?" asked Rhyall as he trotted along beside Ganon. "They think I am one of theirs?"

"Well, from a distance, yeah. You've got the hair, the height, and the build, so you're not so obviously foreign like blondie and me. Meaning, you won't get scrutinized as much if you don't give anybody a reason to do so. It's kind of ideal, actually."

"Blondie,' Rhyall said. He turned around and looked for her.

She wasn't there. The last he had seen her, she was still by the gate, staring at some structure of obsidian protruding from the sands just on the outside of the wall like some kind of growth.

Her eyelids were fluttering and her lips looked parched.

Rhyall never should have left her. The distracting presence of so many people was no excuse for negligence. Zelda needed rest, and someone to watch over her while she recovered; her health and wellbeing should have been Rhyall's first priority.

He pulled Ganon to a stop, which wasn't difficult to do.

"What about Zelda?" Rhyall asked. "Where is she?"

"What about her?" Ganon said, his deeper nastiness creeping into the edges of his voice for just a moment. "Knowing her, she'll probably tell the guards who we are as fast as possible once she remembers that there's more things to disturb and meddle with than forgotten graves."

"She's exhausted," said Rhyall. "She can't stand up to this heat."

Ganon's expression was hidden, save his rolling eyes. "Oh, don't worry. She's going to somewhere a lot chillier than we are. She'll be put right in no time."

Rhyall blinked. "That black… thing?"

"Yeah. That Slate thing she was so up in arms about is like a key. Can't get in without it, so there's no point in following her."

"Get into what?" asked Rhyall.

"The big, black thing."

"But what is it? You mentioned, what, graves?"

"What's graves? Are you talking about the big, black thing?"

"Yes," pressed Rhyall. "What's the big, black thing?"

"Oh," said Ganon. He nodded, mostly to himself. "It's a big, black thing."

Rhyall rubbed his temples and willed his hackles not to rise. "Yes, but what is it?"

"Well, it's big, see, and it's black, and it's a thing. That's what it is."

Rhyall gritted his teeth. "Yes, I understand that. And?"

Ganon rotated his hand as if to urge more details out from between Rhyall's bared teeth and obscuring veil. "And?"

Rhyall bristled uncomfortably beneath his clothes. "And. What else. Is it?"

"And what else is what?"

Rhyall took a long, shuddering breath, and wiped at his face instead of reaching for Ganon's throat.

"What is that thing just outside the city?"

"The what, now?"

Rhyall's tail lashed against the ground, and he sucked in a deep breath until he was in control of himself.

"The big, black thing," he clarified again, with frightening calm. "What is it?"

"Oh!" said Ganon. "That. Right." He nodded.

Rhyall watched him, expectant.

Ganon nodded again. "Well, it's a big, black thing."

The next thing Rhyall knew, Ganon's neck was in his hands, and he was shaking his shorter body left and right with every intention of popping his head right off his shoulders. He let out an enormous roar.

The little girl had long stopped scribbling her name in the sand and instead turned to stare at the two of them with huge eyes. At the sound of his roar, she yelped and took off running out of the alley, screaming, until she was absorbed in the crowds of people milling about on the next street.

Ganon's eyes widened over his veil, and he looked between Rhyall and the girl like one of them might catch fire at any moment.

He kicked Rhyall square between the legs, and the poor demi-Lynel dropped him in favor of holding himself.

"Nice going, you idiot!" Ganon choked out, holding his throat. "What're you gonna do if she blabs on us, huh?!"

Rhyall glared at him. "That is your problem, not mine!"

"The hell it is!" Ganon's voice cracked pathetically halfway through the second word, and he let out a whooping cough. "They'll kick me out, sure, but they'll kill you, man!"

"It is a warrior's honor to die in battle!"

"Oh, yeah?!" pried Ganon. "What about your brother, then? What about your maps?! What about our deal, huh? You ever think about someone other than yourself?!" He rubbed at his throat. "Dinraal's danglin' dugs, man! Stop acting like a teenager for just two seconds, alright?!"

Rhyall was young, and he knew it showed: he was especially gangly, scrawny, and immature compared to his full-blooded Lynel brother and brethren, but Ganon's scolding made him feel even smaller. He felt his cheeks flush in embarrassment. The veil suddenly seemed a blessing to him, then.

"Wh-what about you?" Rhyall shot back. "Do you ever think about anyone besides yourself? Do you not have any concern for Zelda, you, uh," he tried to think of anything scathing to say about Ganon that wasn't just a general description for a Hylian, "you straw-headed imbecile?!"

Ganon shook his head. "That's the worst insult job I've ever heard. C'mon, man, you wanna hurt me, go for the big guns. Insult my ears or something! Show me you mean business."

"I'm not about to insult you simply because you look like a Hylian!" exclaimed Rhyall. He let go of his crotch and clenched his fists at his sides. "My father and I get enough of that!"

Ganon stood straight up, and stared at Rhyall. "Father," he said. "So your father was the Hylian, and your mother the Lynel. Huh." Even through the veil, Rhyall could see the corner of his nose scrunch up like he'd thought of something he'd wished he hadn't. "Huh. I don't know if this makes me feel better, or worse."

Rhyall blinked up at him.

Ganon shuddered. "Anyways! We should go get you something to drink! After learning that, I need a drink!" He started towards the street, and then doubled back. "Where's the bar?"

"You can go to a bar if you want to," said Rhyall, turning around. "I'm going to find Zelda."

The thought of her collapsed on the hot sands or stuck in the clutches of another Lizalfos- or even another Yiga- made Rhyall's stomach twist into knots. He couldn't believe he'd allowed himself to lose sight of her, even for a moment.

Ganon circled around Rhyall and held out his hands to hold him in place with a frantic energy.

"Alright, loverboy," said Ganon. "Hold your horses, there. And your lions, come to think of it" he added, his real voice coming out for a chuckle. "Because, you know, you're half-horse, half-lion, and half-!" He shook his head. "Faron's friggin' figs, I need that drink. Anyways. There's something else we need to get straight about Zelda right now before you make a huge kerfuffle for yourself. Lesson one: leave her alone."

"She's unused to this heat," Rhyall argued. "She can be as proud as she likes, but she needs help if she wants to survive in a new place with no other known allies."

"Yes, but not from us," said Ganon. "She's a strong girl- infuriatingly resilient, actually- but if she wants to accomplish what she wants to accomplish, she's got to learn to do a few other things on her own. It's why I lead her here."

"You think leaving her dehydrated in a desert is going to help her?!" asked Rhyall. "What kind of backwards creature are you?! Even the proudest of Lynel claiming territory stay near enough to another Lynel to aid them, should the need arise!"

Rhyall had made entire maps around the concept of Lynel territories and where they overlapped. These safe zones were the only reliable ways he had of charting and navigating Hyrule proper, so far, without getting slaughtered by a bunch of Hylians or Gorons who killed Lynel on sight. That's how important it was to know where your allies lived.

"Shh," said Ganon, a finger to his veil. "She's got Gerudo all around that she can ask to help her! She'll be fine!"

Rhyall spread his arms out, wide. "And does she have that kind of relationship with any of them? Are they that giving and trusting of a people? Does she know a single one of them?!"

Ganon rolled his eyes. "Look, she'll be fine. I promise. And besides, you have a deal with me, not with her!"

"She is the stronger of the two of you, but that does not mean she is impervious to harm" said Rhyall. "You both may have struck me down again, but only she remained alert and victorious. You fainted."

Ganon put his hands on his hips. His bracelets jingled with an outraged tinkle. "Oh, yeah? What's your point?!"

"She bested me, is the stronger of the two of you, and therefore also has my loyalty," said Rhyall.

Ganon's obscured mouth tightened into an offended frown, but then he flipped a stray piece of hair off his shoulder like he could literally toss away this mark on his pride with the same action.

"Alright," Ganon said, fingers splayed wide, "that one, single incident is not a fair indication of our comparative strength, but I can see how you would think that she is the greater warrior based on that one experience, yes."

"She is the greater warrior," said Rhyall. "She carries herself with the fury of the fight at all times, and never fails to meet you in an altercation even if she knows she will lose."

"No, see, that's just because she has a bad attitude," said Ganon. "You're confusing entitlement for something else entirely."

It's still honorable," argued Rhyall.

Ganon raised an eyebrow at him in a perfect arc. If condescending incredulity could be embodied by a shape, that was it.

Rhyall pawed at the stone with his right hoof, and felt his cheeks flush. "It is honorable, if somewhat… childish and degrading. But still, I must make sure she is alright. That's the point."

"Yeah, and get a nice slap square to the face for your trouble," said Ganon. "Maybe an insult or three, or a classist or racist comment, just for that extra dig."

"Perhaps. But after such a sound defeat, she'll choose to spare me, again." Rhyall flashed smug teeth beneath his veil, and strode around Ganon. "I may have made a deal with you, and I do intend to uphold my end, but the rest of my life is intimately tied with hers after such an act, until death do us part."

"Pft," said Ganon. "You make it sound like you're-!"

Ganon froze. Rhyall wasn't looking at him to confirm it, but he didn't need to. He could just feel it.

Then, Ganon was in front of him again, like he could appear and disappear like some kind of wizard.

"You think the fact that she let you live means she wants to marry you?!" Ganon shouted.

Rhyall blinked. "Of course. It's tradition," he said. "Why do you think you never meet any survivors of Lynel attacks, even when the Lynel in question disappears from a territory afterwards?"

Ganon's eyes looked like they might pop out of their head.

"Admitting defeat is admitting engagement," Rhyall said. "You didn't seriously think Lynel attacked travelers just because, did you?"

"What?!" Even with his veil over his mouth, Rhyall could see Ganon's jaw hanging open. "Are you saying they're eliminating potential suitors?!"

"If they are unpaired, yes," said Rhyall. He crossed his arms, and smiled. "No matter what Zelda says, I am always hers, and she is always mine. She chose me, like my mother chose my father."

He circumnavigated Ganon again, or tried to, but Ganon slammed his palms into Rhyall's chest and refused to budge.

"What?!" Ganon spluttered, again, after three false starts. "You-? Your, your parents-? So they-?"

He took a step back, massaged his temples, and paced the width of the alley so quickly that a cloud of pale dust rose around his feet.

"Okay, okay, I knew this was weird already, and I kept wondering about it, but you're saying that your parents-?! So did your mother spare your father, or did your father-?" Ganon sucked in a breath and shook his head. "How does that even…? Nevermind! Nevermind! I don't wanna know! Ugh!" He shivered, even in this heat. "Stop thinking about it! Stop! Stop!"

Rhyall rolled his eyes as he passed by Ganon. "Enough of this. I must find Zelda," he said. "I will return."

Ganon slammed his foot down on the edge of Rhyall's skirt, and almost sent him sprawling across the paved streets. Luckily, Rhyall caught himself and only let loose a surprised yelp and a pointed glare behind himself.

"Alright, no. We need to have a talk before you make a huge ass of yourself," said Ganon.

"Are you… challenging me for her hand?" asked Rhyall, hackles rising. "This may compromise our deal."

"No. Hard no," said Ganon. "That's not what this is."

Rhyall stared daggers into him, and rose to his full height. "Are you lying?"

"Look, I'm not about to have a fight with you over the single most elitist, racist person I know. It's just, this can't go down like this. This isn't a shitshow I'm about to watch." Ganon shook his head. "It's just not."

Suspicious. Ganon's entire aura was turning hateful, like he had some great weight pressing against the back of his teeth fighting to get out.

"We shall talk when Zelda is present, as I am assuming she will want to defend herself against your inane slander and imagined grievances," said Rhyall, and he strode off towards the street, this time with finality.

"Oh, no you don't," Ganon warned, and targeted Rhyall's ankles with a sweeping kick.

Rhyall hit the ground like a felled tree in a forest, and roared when Ganon scrambled on top of him and arranged his arms into a hold.

"You gutless, backstabbing scum!" shouted Rhyall. "You attack me from behind, during an agreement of truce?! Twice?! Don't you have any honor?!"

"Shut up, you frickin' mapmaker! This is for your own good!" Ganon said, grunting as Rhyall struggled beneath him.

"I am a cartographer!" roared Rhyall, and he flung Ganon from his back, and held him down against the ground, instead. "And I am promised to Zelda!"

Ganon slammed him in the face with his skull, and Rhyall recoiled.

"I have stuck my neck out for that girl long enough, and I'm not letting her take advantage of me- or you- any more than I have to!"

"Shut your mouth!" hollered Rhyall, and he punched Ganon in the teeth. Blood splattered against the back of his veil.

Ganon returned the favor by shoving his elbow right into Rhyall's stomach, and then grabbing him by the jaw. He pulled his head down so that their eyes were level.

"Listen to me, because I'm only going to say this once: that girl has haunted me all my life, and I promise that you don't want anything to do with the baggage she's carrying."

Rhyall pulled himself away from Ganon and kicked him in the stomach so that he sprawled on the ground, his arms spread wide.

"That is for me to decide," said Rhyall, "not you!"

Ganon was on his feet an instant later, and Rhyall resolved to kick him harder next time.

Ganon read his mind. He got low and charged, but just as he was close enough for Rhyall to strike, he dove to the side, and then, as Rhyall stood helpless on one leg, threw his black cloak over his face, tackled him into the unfortunately situated produce stand sitting right on the corner of the alley and the main thoroughfare, and shoved his head directly into a hydromelon.


End file.
